


Gone

by LadyGinoza



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: Abduction, Animal Death, Blood and Gore, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, M/M, Other, Physical Abuse, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Rape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-14 09:22:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 15
Words: 46,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4559262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyGinoza/pseuds/LadyGinoza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Ginoza missing and his life on the line the team must race to find him before time runs out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfic contains coarse language, sexual themes, rape, violence and gore. This is the Re-Boot from my fanfic Gone on ff.net. I won't be posting the original on here cause I'm a lazy ass but here is the link if you are all curious about the original https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10776671/1/Gone.  
> Again this fanfic contains coarse language, sexual themes, rape, violence and gore. The rape scenes can be considered graphic. Do not read if you can't handle rape, there is rape in this fanfic. RAPE IN THE FANFIC! Okay I believe I made my point.

** \- Chapter 1 - **

**Kougami**

I would have given anything to have a day off today. It’s just one of those days you know that you should have stayed in bed and do nothing. Kagari must be thinking pretty much the same thing as I am right now. Since we started our shift this morning he’s been fighting with his computer none stop. The damn thing either freezes every ten to twenty minutes or just shuts down by itself.

That particular computer has always been a piece of junk deserving nothing more than to go in the trash but the technicians keep insisting that the thing is still in great shape. Sasayama used to say that computer was possessed by a ghost or something. Whether he was being serious about the haunted computer or if he just wanted to freak Gino out for the fun of it was never really certain but anyway that thing has never worked properly to begin with since I was transferred to division one when I was still an inspector and chances are it won’t ever either.  

“Will you stop abusing the machine? Just call the technician to come fix it Kagari.”

“Yeah yeah Kunizuka. I say wreck the piece of shit, that way I’d finally get a new one that actually works.” Kagari answers as he gives the computer’s box another kick.

“Gino will kill you.” I tell Kagari with a chuckle just thinking about how Gino would react to Kagari basically abusing that piece of crap of a computer if he was here would have made things rather interesting in this dull and boring morning.

I give my report a final revision before sending it to Gino but I won’t know if it will actually be approved until he gets here to inspect it himself. I check the time, eight forty-five and he’s not even here yet… Akane should be here soon too; maybe he decided to have breakfast with her this morning or something that would explain why he isn’t here yet. Honestly I think it would do Gino some good to socialize with others once in a while and quite frankly it would strengthen his teamwork with Akane. To get to know her better that is and the same for her, they can’t work as a team if they are not closer to one another.  

“Nah Gino will nag but we all know in the back of his head he’ll be like fuck yeah!” Kagari quickly exclaims with over exaggerated gestures as he sends a quick message for a technician to come fix his computer before turning his attention to his game as usual.

“Good morning!” Akane’s voice quickly caught my attention, always cheerful no matter what happens. Her eyes quickly scan the room before setting her gaze upon me. “Mr. Ginoza isn’t here?”

“No we haven’t seen him. I figured you two decided to have breakfast together or something.” I answer back as I send in my report not voicing at how odd it is that he’s not here yet. That’s just not like him to arrive at the last minute or late, he’s always almost an hour early…

She puts her things on her workspace before sending a call with her terminal but nothing. I know Gino; he’s not the type to come in late without notifying that he would be first. He has to be extremely sick to take a sick day and from yesterday he showed absolutely no signs that he was coming down with something. Actually he was fine… I quickly glance towards pops; he’s been quiet all morning. I can tell that he’s concerned and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t either, it’s just not like him.

“Again nothing…” Akane voices out into a mumble.

“Wouldn’t he have notified the chief if he couldn’t come in or something?” Kagari asks, his earlier enthusiast already faded away as he puts his handheld console away on his desk.

“If that would have been the case Akane would have been notified immediately and she hasn’t so no, chances are that the chief has no idea that Gino isn’t even here yet.” I reply back, looking at Akane who is still just standing there in front of the door thinking about what she should do. Being the inspector and the one in charge at the moment, it’s her call to decide; either way whatever she will decide, we’ll follow.

“Isn’t it obvious, we go knock on the good inspector’s door. It won’t hurt to go check what’s going on and besides even if there was a stress level today, unit one is not even the unit on call.” Pops states as he puts his jacket on.

“It wouldn’t hurt I guess.” She answers back after a few minutes of silence. I can tell she feels uneasy, being a rookie inspector can’t say that I blame her.

* * *

 

One thing about being an enforcer that is always hard to get used to would be the damn paddy wagon. Sitting in a dimly lit box of darkness with the other enforcers and the moment you get to see the light of day is the moment you are no longer viewed as a human being but nothing more than a hunting dog… Being viewed as a beast isn’t what bothers me; it’s the lack of respect that we get. We could have been the greatest of human beings but the moment the collar gets put on you, your words mean little to the public…

After I became a latent criminal, Gino accepted for having me as a replacement for Sasayama although he was recommended otherwise he still chose to keep me in division one and then he chose Kagari himself to fill the empty gap we had. Why Kagari? He never told me, not that I ever expected him to do so considering my status now but at first it was an odd feeling not having the person you’ve been the closest to for so long not tell you anything anymore when you know you were their go to person for anything and now it’s as if I no longer exist. 

I understand why, he’s worked hard to get to where he is I’d hate to see Gino fall like I did. Pops would never forgive me if I’d allow that to happen, he would allow himself to die if it meant that Gino could continue walking the path that he’s currently on. Being an enforcer, I know how this life is and it’s the last thing I want to see Gino become. Its fine if it’s me, I can bare it…   

The paddy waggon comes to a stop, the doors slowly opens after a few minutes allowing the light to flow in as my eyes quickly adjust from being in the dark a little too long. I get out followed by the others as I look at the building that Gino lives in. It’s a quiet neighborhood near a large park… Just the perfect place for him.

“I wonder which condo is Mr. Ginoza’s?” Akane asks as she checks the building’s structure.

“Shin Chiyoda-ku, Hitotsubashi four seventy-six-D” I say as I walk towards the building after taking my dominator as Akane quickly follows in tow. As usual the place is quiet with nothing much going on, everyone just keeping to their own not bothering anyone but the vibe is calm and friendly still just like I remembered.

“How can Gino live here? I mean there’s no action, I’d lose my mind living in a place like this.” Kagari voices out.

“It’s nice…” Kunizuka states in a neutral tone.

“Exactly it’s girly.” He replies mockingly.

“This is it.” I say ignoring Kagari and Kunizuka’s small argument as I knock on the door.

“Doesn’t look like Mr. Ginoza is home. Where do you think he could have gone Mr. Kougami?” Akane asks as she gives Gino another quick call but nothing.

“Do you hear that?” I ask.

Akane closes her terminal as she listens for possible sounds. “Hear what? I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly, where the hell is Dime?” I ask to myself, something isn’t right.

“Dime?”

I ignored Akane’s puzzled expression. I know something is wrong and I know pops has that same feeling as I do. I think he’s had a bad feeling all morning, the subconscious telling you that something isn’t right but you just can’t put your finger on it until it’s too late. I quickly back up and kick the door as hard as I could leaving Akane shocked that I just busted open Gino’s door and I wasted no time entering the condo with my dominator ready to fire if need be.

Nothing seems out of place, everything is exactly where I remembered them to be. It’s almost unbelievable how he hasn’t changed a single thing in here. I quickly look around, scanning the room for anything suspicious as the others enter.

“Mr. Kougami! Mr. Ginoza is probably not even here!” I could sense the frustration and concern in her voice as she spoke but she’s missing the bigger picture here.

“Dime isn’t here but his leash is right there so he should have been barking the moment I knocked on that door and yet he’s not here.” I state as I point out the leash still hanging on the hook right next to the door and his harness is also there on the second hook so again it’s impossible that Gino went for a walk with Dime without it.

“Maybe Ginoza decided not to use a leash.” Kunizuka says as she searches around for anything odd.

“Dime is a Siberian Husky; Gino wouldn’t be foolish enough to go on a walk with Dime without putting him on a leash and more importantly without the harness. Something’s not right here.” I state as I walk into his living area, inspecting everything I can see and so far nothing catches my eye.

Everything shows that he came home after work; his terminal is on the side table at the entrance and his jacket on the hook next to the door just like he always does. Everything shows that he came home but no signs that he actually left the condo and yet its dead quiet in here. The noise alone would have been enough to wake the sickest person out of bed and right now it’s not the case.

“The mystery is solved.” Pops’ voice takes me out of my thoughts as I quickly join him in the kitchen and there he is lying in a pool of blood, Gino’s faithful dog. Kagari quickly goes into the hall and comes back a few minutes later in short breath saying that there isn’t anyone in the condo. Whatever happened here, Dime fought and lost, and Gino’s gone.

“Ms. Kunizuka go get the Forensic Bots. Maybe they can help us figure out exactly what happened here. Mr. Kougami and Mr. Masaoka I need both of you to search for clues as to where Ginoza could be and what happened here.” Akane quickly orders.

By the looks of the blood and the stiffness of Dime’s corps, it’s safe to assume that it’s been dead for over seven hours and if that’s the case all of this must have happened late last night or early morning at best. The thing is before I busted the door down there wasn’t any forced entry so how did this criminal enter in here? The windows are perfectly intact; everything is as it should be nothing out of place, no signs of a struggle or anything that seems to be missing…

“Did you find anything Mr. Kougami?” Akane’s question takes me out of my thoughts, she’s doing her best to keep calm but I can tell she’s anxious about all of this.

“Nothing is out of place and there aren’t any signs of a struggle.” I state as I keep looking around.

“Could it be possible that whoever did this is someone that Mr. Ginoza knows? Anyway I just finished speaking with the chief; she’s greatly disturbed about Mr. Ginoza’s disappearance. Our priority is to find and locate Mr. Ginoza.” She states before continuing. “However, I must know something Mr. Kougami. The chief as recommended me that I should remove Mr. Masaoka from this case. Why?”

Why doesn’t that surprise me from the chief? She seriously is a pain in the ass that woman, being an enforcer is at least one thing I don’t miss.

“You still haven’t figured that out yet? Pops is Gino’s old man.” I blurt out. I thought she would have figured that one out by now. You look at Gino and it’s just the spitting image of pops but younger with black hair and green eyes.

“I had no idea… Asking Masaoka to remove himself from this case would be-”

“If you told pops that he could not be part of this case he’d find a way to be in it. It would not matter if it was against the law or not but if you’re worried that his personal feelings might cloud his judgement, don’t be.” I cut her off as I continue searching for anything that could pin point to what happened.

Pops would be the last person I’d fear that he’ll let personal feelings disturb him in his work, no matter what he’ll get the job done that’s without a doubt so Akane doesn’t have to worry about it and honestly it be foolish to take him off this case. We need to find Gino and taking Pops off it would be like giving Gino to the slaughters.

“Kou I think we found something.” Kagari’s shout made Akane jump in surprise, I guess she’s on edge or heavily in thoughts and I don’t blame her. Every investigation we’ve done so far, Gino was the one doing most of the technical work, she simply observed or just tagged along with the enforcers. Right now she’s found herself having to lead all four enforcers on her on, good thing we’re not like most enforcers.

“What did you find?” I ask as we joined the others in the living area carefully stepping so we don’t step on the forensic drones.

“When it comes to solving crimes, detectives would become famous depending on their success rate in the past. In this day and age, the number of inspectors has greatly dropped so there aren’t many to acknowledge.” Pops explains as he walks away into the hall and we follow.

“In the past many detectives would find themselves victims of numerous crimes and we’ve stumbled on a bad one. We’re dealing with a sociopath.” He adds as we enter Gino’s bedroom revealing Gino’s unmade bed which is odd considering how much I know Gino to be a neat freak.

“A sociopath, like a serial killer?” Akane asks.

Serial killers are one thing but sociopaths are another thing making me wonder exactly what got Pops to come to that conclusion. Anyhow that question was quickly answered as pops yanked the covers off the bed to reveal what he had found causing Akane to cover her mouth to control the urge to vomit at the sight.

“It’s a game, how long it will last, will be up to us and him.” He Pops states as he looks at us and my eyes go back to the mattress, the white fitted sheet soiled with four words written in blood.

“Let’s play a game.”


	2. Chapter 2

** \- Chapter 2 - **

**Akane**

What should be my next move? Unit one’s main priority is to locate and retrieve Mr. Ginoza but exactly how can I do that? ‘Let’s play a game’ written in blood and a dead dog in the kitchen are the only clues that we have at the moment.

Was the message on the fitted sheet written with Mr. Ginoza’s own blood or that of his dog? If it is with Mr. Ginoza’s blood, is there already a chance that he’s already dead? No, no Akane don’t think like that, he can’t be dead, he just can’t be. I can’t lose my composure, not in front of the enforcers!

So far the forensic bots have found nothing that can help us get any further into locating Mr. Ginoza, Kagari and Ms. Kunizuka have been going around the building asking questions to the residence of the complex for anything that could have been suspicious but nothing came of it yet. Mr. Kougami and Mr. Masaoka have been searching the condo for anything that could explain how the culprit got inside and how he manage to abduct a man without anyone seeing anything but still nothing.

I’m feeling like an idiot standing here, just starring at Mr. Ginoza’s home. He doesn’t have any hologram system set up in here which I find odd; I would have thought he’d be more into technology than that. Everything is old fashion decorated in nineteenth-twentieth century French Country Provincial style décor.

The walls are largely decorated in green Victorian wallpaper and neutral tones, accented by reds. The flooring of the condo is a dark brown reddish hardwood floor that has clear signs of wear at certain places. The windows are dressed with red curtains giving the room a warm feel to it matching the red, white and gold Persian/oriental-style rug in the living room and to top it are a couch and a chair that are both off-white, and an off-white marble-topped wooden coffee table right in the middle of the elegant rug.   

On the walls are a bunch of frames with old coins, they’re practically everywhere. In the living area, in the kitchen, there were even some in his bedroom. Most of these coins, I don’t even know exactly how old they are or where they originate from.

In the corner of the living area there is a stylish divider to block the immediate view of his exercise area that consists mostly of weight-lifting equipment. His dining table is of an old French country style wood. Everything in Mr. Ginoza’s home is not at all how I had expected it would be. They say you can tell a lot about someone by looking through their home; Mr. Ginoza’s style is soft, neutral and sophisticated meaning that he is a soft hearted person who enjoys the simpler things in life but not without having an interest in antiques. There are some pieces of furniture that I am sure is almost two hundred years old and in perfect shape too.

I never did try to understand Mr. Ginoza or even try to get to know him as a person, if I did… Maybe I’d be in a better position to help him…

“How can someone commit a crime and then just disappear like that? It just doesn’t make any sense…” I ask as Mr. Kougami walks by catching his attention.

“It’s not that they disappeared, they’re just good at hiding their traces.” He answers as lights a cigarette.

“Mr. Kougami nothing here shows any signs that there was a break-in in the first place. If it had not been for the dead dog in the kitchen we never could have been able to tell that a crime had even occurred here. Nothing adds up, why Mr. Ginoza? Why not someone else?” I ask trying to make out the logic of the clues that we do know but nothing is making much sense to me. True that Mr. Ginoza is one of the MWPSB’s senior inspector in the CID but he isn’t the only one either so why him? Does this criminal wish to send a message to us in using one of our own but why?

“Now you’re asking the right questions Akane.” Mr. Kougami replies with a smile on his face like he figured something out that I still haven’t.

“That’s what this criminal wants you to think; it’s a form to lure inspectors off the right track in order to give himself the time he needs to do his kills in his own sick and twisted ways. These types of lunatics are the ones who feel an obligation to kill with their specific signatures. Those signatures are what we use to identify serial killers, those signatures give them a sexual release that they can’t get with just a simple kill and my guesses, his must take some time to do, hence the game.” He explains but still, it doesn’t answer my question as to why Mr. Ginoza…

“But why Mr. Ginoza? That’s what I don’t get Mr. Kougami. What’s the message is he sending to the MWPSB?” I ask as I follow Mr. Kougami back into the kitchen where the deceased animal still lied on the floor.

“It’s not a message, well none that I can make of anyhow. I’d say it’s more of a way to taunt us than an actual message. It’s a simple mind game nothing more, the criminal only wants you to think it means something just so you’ll waste time on it giving him more time.” He quickly replied followed by a drag on his cigarette before continuing, exhaling the smoke. “First we return to the MWPSB, we go to Shion and get her to run a search through the database for any deceased in the last year with the same characteristic as Gino and that will be our lead to go on.”

“Characteristics?”

“Appearance. Typical serial killers will stick to victims with similar appearances like hair color, skin tone, height, weight, gender, and so on.” He simply answers. It makes sense but why would murderer stick to specific appearances but at this point does it really matter as to why a killer would prefer certain traits in his victims? I don’t think so but I really don’t understand these kinds of things… Actually I just don’t get why people would kill, we live in a better world now so there shouldn’t be so much violence and yet there still are in abundance…

“Profiling the criminal, I get it.” I acknowledge but I can’t help but feel ridiculous; like I’m the one being babied every time there’s a case. It’s like I can’t follow Mr. Kougami, he’s always one… No two steps ahead of me. Most of the time I feel like he’s the one guiding the unit, doing the role of the inspector and I’m the one who follows like the enforcer. I know it should be the other way around…

It’s not that I don’t get along well with the enforcers, I like them all and I respect their opinions on the cases but I’ve got no idea where I’m going. I feel lost when we start investigating a case, I never know where to start. It’s only when things are in motion that I seem to be fitting in but that’s only because I follow. I don’t lead and I need to be able to lead.

“So Mr. Kougami do you think that whoever did this has already killed before?” I ask which the answer should be rather obvious.

Mr. Kougami gives me a nod before taking another drag on his cigarette, blowing out the smoke and I can’t help but wave my hands to disperse it away. “I do, he’s too good at hiding his traces for being his first abduction…”

“The residences don’t know anything, none was even aware that a crime had even occurred.” Kagari states removing his hologram costume followed by Ms. Kunizuka. “How do you take a six feet tall man out of a building without being notice and not to mention this fucker had to carry dead weight and even when Gino isn’t dead weight he’s not lite alright. He’s fucking heavy, I don’t get where he packs that weight.” He adds

“If you lifted weights, you’d be heavier too.” Ms. Kunizuka shoots back at Kagari and surprisingly no argument started. Anyway, I give out the orders that we were to return to the MWPSB as Mr. Kougami had suggested earlier but I wished that I was as confident as I sounded. What would Mr. Ginoza do in such a situation? Knowing him he’d probably ignore Mr. Kougami altogether or would he…?

A heavy hand on my shoulder takes me out of my thoughts as I look up to meet Mr. Masaoka’s eyes. “Stressing yourself won’t help solve the case; it will only cause you to make mistakes. Take it easy, one step at a time little missy and hope for the best outcome.” He says before lifting his hand and walks away with the other enforcers and I follow.

How is it that Mr. Masaoka can be so calm in this type of situation, his son is the one whose life is on the line and yet he hasn’t lost his cool, not even in the slightest?

* * *

Ms. Karanomori lit a thin cigarette, casually blowing the smoke out of her mouth as she hits a few keys on her keyboard making several windows open and closing others.

“I ran a thorough search in the database fitting Gino’s characteristics and five matches came up and what a coincidence all of them are cold files too.” She states in her casual calm tone.

“Is it enough to assume that their deaths were caused by the same murderer?” I ask looking at the screen with the five deceased males, all with dark haired, pale skin and green eyes which is rather creepy. Other than those similar features, none of these males share the same facial structure as Mr. Ginoza nor does any of them wear glasses and their height do not even come close either. The tallest of these five men was five feet and eight inches so does that mean the murderer only cares for those three traits in his victims?

“Normally it wouldn’t be. However, their cause of death is the same though.” Ms. Karanomori states as she swivels her chair to look at us. “Their deaths were caused by exsanguination that led to a haemorrhagic shock but there was one thing that came out as odd with all of the cases though.” She explains, taking another short drag of her cigarette and blew out a puff of grey smoke before pressing a few keys making several images of the victims show up on screen.

I honestly can’t believe what I’m seeing as I cover my mouth to control the urge to vomit at the pictures of the dead bodies that were photographed at their respective crime scene at the time. All five males are as white as snow, their pigmentation is completely gone!  

“The bodies were completely drained of their blood. A human body that loses more than forty percent is fatal. The heart exhausts itself and it just simply stops pumping altogether so at death the human body should still have blood in their veins.” She further explains. “All we know is that these victims got their blood completely drained dry, how it was done exactly remains unclear and much to debate but this is why the corps’ skin turned completely white.” She adds.

“Fuck that’s going to be Gino if we don’t catch this fucker?” Kagari asks, his tone not hiding his frustration killing the unbearable silence that had found its way into the lab.

I can’t tell what the others are thinking, how are they feeling. All of them are so good at keeping a poker face, especially Mr. Masaoka. He’s just silently listening to what Ms. Karanomori has been telling us, observing each photo carefully. I can’t even imagine what must be going through his head right now, is he imagining his son in those pictures? I just don’t know…

“This guy’s pattern is obvious.” Mr. Kougami suddenly blurts out as he walks closer to the monitor. “The first victim’s body was found dumped in an alley on January fifteen and if we go to the second victim. His body was found on a bench in a public park on March fifteen and if we jump to the third, his body was discovered in a cemetery entrance on May fifteen. Fourth victim near a public fountain hologram on July fifteen and our last victim was found on September fifteen near a museum.”

A smile grew on his face as he sits down on the couch never removing his eyes off the screen. “Today is October fifteen; we’ve got until November fifteen to find Gino, giving us exactly thirty days to solve this case. If we don’t we’ll be looking at body number six and a thirty day race to figure out who exactly is the next target.” He adds.

Although we have a time period for us to find Mr. Ginoza it still doesn’t get us any closer into finding him. All we know is whoever is causing these murders drains his victim’s blood and he has a thing for the number fifteen…

“That must be how he manages to abduct his victims. He stalks his victims a month before attacking; getting to know everything they do, down to their schedules, everything. Kind of sick you ask me.” I voice out.

Is a month long enough to befriend someone? If this individual befriended Mr. Ginoza during the time he was stalking him and learning everything he needs to know about him, it would explain how this criminal entered Mr. Ginoza’s home so easily in the first place.

Thinking back at his dog Dime, Mr. Kougami said that Dime was the type of dog to bark at the slightest noise that was not familiar to him and apparently as Dime grew older he also became more protective of Mr. Ginoza to the point he would attack anyone he did not know if they came to close to him.

If I place into account that this criminal did in fact break into Mr. Ginoza’s home, Dime would have not only barked but he would have attacked the intruder and without a doubt we would have seen some form of damage in the condo but we didn’t and from what Mr. Kougami told me, Mr. Ginoza is also apparently a very lite sleeper so he would have been easily woken up and therefor he could have defended himself and signs of a struggled again would have been noted but there wasn’t anything to note in particular.

Dime didn’t bark because he did not feel like he needed too and he didn’t attack either so all signs shows that he knew the attacker but it still doesn’t exactly answer how he was able to pull it off though. If the attacker was already inside and he decided to attack Mr. Ginoza in that moment then why didn’t Dime defend him?

“If this person killed five people already how did he avoid the street scanners for so long? His Psycho-Pass must be incredibly high right now.” Ms. Kunizuka states, something I had forgotten to even consider.

“Let’s just assume at this point that he’s good at avoiding the street scanners.” Mr. Kougami quickly answers which he has a point.

“Inspector we should visit the past crime scenes of the other victims. I can’t help but feel like division three might have missed something there. All these bodies just disposed in complete view, the killer wants the bodies to be found.” I agree with Mr. Masaoka on this one, it would be the best bet we have right now.

“I get the vibe that this criminal’s message is how and where he places his victims. I agree with pops that visiting those crime scenes is a good idea.” Agrees Mr. Kougami.

“Two crime scenes are not that close to the others, actually they are in complete opposite of the city and the others have a fair distance away from each other and with one inspector down, we can’t split up the unit. It will take a lot of time, time we just don’t have right now.” Ms. Kunizuka points out.

Just when we start to get a momentum, we are hit with another problem if only the enforcers could be given a temporarily leave on their own to investigate. I’m confident in all of them that they won’t try to run away. Mr. Masaoka, Mr. Kougami, Kagari and Ms. Kunizuka all want to find Mr. Ginoza as soon as possible and to get him back safely but I know the chief would never allow it.

“We’ll just have to do our best and work fast-”

“That won’t be necessary inspector. My unit will cover the crime scene in the cemetery and near the museum.” Inspector Aoyanagi… I’ve never had the opportunity to actually talk to her up close before, I didn’t even noticed when she came in…  

“Cat got your tongue inspector?” She asks.

It took me a few seconds to process it all; I’m just a little speechless and taken by surprise. I never thought that anyone would offer assistance.

“All the help we can get is greatly appreciated inspector Aoyanagi!” I quickly bow in gratitude and thank her more times than I should but finally for the first time since this whole nightmare started, I feel as if I’m catching a break. I just feel relieved.

“Alright then, we’ll be taking the further away scenes and leaving the nearer ones for your team. Even if the enforcers scatter a bit to those locations it won’t matter since you will still be in the vicinity and besides, you won’t have any worries with this bunch.” She adds with a confident tone.

I don’t know why inspector Aoyanagi decided to help but right now I’m just thankful, being new in this position isn’t easy… Even though Mr. Ginoza is crabby and irritable, I still view his seniority and his experience valuable. I can’t fail, failure isn’t an option, I need my partner back.

 


	3. Chapter 3

** \- Chapter 3 - **

**Akane**

Ms. Kunizuka and Kagari left to investigate the crime scene at the public fountain hologram; Mr. Masaoka chose the first crime scene in the alley saying that being the oldest of the scenes it would also be the hardest to find anything so that leaves the scene where the victim was found on the bench to Mr. Kougami and I. Anything that could have had important DNA have been long ago destroyed by the elements since this was the second crime scene.

How could division three not put all those five murders together? All of them died the exact same way so how could they have missed that? Because of their lack of observation it may cost us one of our own. It’s frustrating knowing that all of this could have been prevented… Why couldn’t those first cases just have fallen to division one instead? I know Mr. Masaoka and Mr. Kougami would have been able to solve it in no time…

If you take this crime scene, we are exactly a mile away from the first crime scene and the fourth crime scene, only difference is that they are on complete opposite. The first crime scene is west while the fourth is in the east. The third crime scene is ten miles south from here and the fifth is also ten miles but north. These distances and locations just can’t be coincidence. There must be a meaning to these numbers and why these locations in particular. Each body was placed in plain view, the murderer did not even try to hide the bodies, he wanted them to be found. If that was the only thing he wanted, he could have placed them in other places so why here?

“Mr. Kougami, do you see anything worth noting?” I ask as I inspect the park bench in case the murderer had left something more on it but nothing or maybe there had been something but it’s long gone by now.

“He could have used other benches in this park but he chose this one.” He answered casually like he always does but more in a way of thinking.

It’s rather remarkable watching Mr. Kougami work, how he thinks and how he places everything together. It’s intriguing and I don’t know, just remarkable.

“Is it strange that the distances from here to the other crime scenes are similar or is it just me?” I ask. I just can’t help but have this feeling that these specific locations must mean something.

“He’s showing us that he’s getting more comfortable with his surroundings by going back and forth.” A smile grew on his face as he explained, taking out a cigarette and lights it, blowing a puff of grey smoke into the air.

It makes sense that whoever murdered those five men is getting more comfortable with his kills but it still doesn’t explain his choice of location only that he is able to go to all these distances without getting caught or rising any bit of suspicion. However, it is safe to assume that this person has access to a vehicle that does not stand out and probably has a driver’s licence too.

“His first location he chose… An empty alley with minimum traffic of people and lack of lighting means that it was probably his first kill and had doubts about being caught. The second scene here which is more public during the day but at night, chances that there are people here wandering around are pretty slim but he’d showed that he’s becoming more confident.” He explains as continues looking around, taking another drag on his cigarette before continuing. “The third scene he took a leap into a cemetery, he’s starting to expand in his location and then he returns back to his comfort zone a mile away from here but used his first real public location and he succeeded without being spotted, giving him confidence so he tested his luck with his fifth kill right next to a museum and he succeeded too.”

“So you’re saying that the murderer is even more comfortable now?” I ask and the very thought of it frightens me knowing that this criminal might be out of my league, more than what I can handle with the experience that I currently have.

Mr. Kougami sits down on the murder bench before giving me his answer that I dreaded to hear. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. He knows how to get around; getting his victims, killing them and then placing their bodies are now a second nature to him. He’s perfecting his skills-…”

He puts out his cigarette when he looks up and just stares at a stone statue for a few minutes and then just like that, a grin of satisfaction grows unto his lips as he gets up. “Contact pops and Kunizuka; ask them if they see any types of artwork in their location.”

“Yeah sure…”

I quickly call Mr. Masaoka and Ms. Kunizuka asking them if they saw any possible artwork in their respective crime scene, whether it is statues, murals or anything that could be viewed as a form of art. Mr. Masaoka confirmed that there was indeed a piece of artwork but you had to say it fast, apparently it didn’t look too appealing. A stain glass made by a now deceased artist whom Mr. Masaoka claims that he had a very poor taste but considering what the building was used for in the past and has now been long abandoned, Mr. Masaoka says the stain glass was quite fitting but I didn’t inquire to know what he meant by that.

I could hear Kagari shouting in the background as Ms. Kunizuka spoke saying the same thing but that the only artistic thing they were able to find in the area was the fountain itself. Long ago the fountain used to be a real one but it was just a waste of water and it was just too much to maintain so the jets and all were replaced by hologram of falling water but the manmade bowl had been kept, restored to its former glory and preserved.

“Alright, return back. I think we might have something.” I tell them before ending the call returning my attention on Mr. Kougami. “They confirmed that there was some form of artwork, Mr. Masaoka a stain glass window and Ms. Kunizuka confirmed the old fountain bowl.” I add.

“The museum is just an art gallery and the southern cemetery is filled with old statues… He places his victims near old art pieces of various forms, which could signify that he’s an artist or works in the artistic field.” Mr. Kougami explains.

I guess it could make sense or maybe it’s just his choosing of location, trying to place art with death, trying to create a message that death is a form of art maybe. Anyhow at this point, it’s just best that we return to the MWPSB and see if Ms. Karanomori was able to find any new information for us. She said that she would try to get more information about each of the victims; maybe that would help to figure out exactly why they fell victim other than their appearances. I really do think knowing who they were and what was their jobs will give us more information to keep moving forward. Other than physical appearance there must be something else that ties each victim together.

It didn’t take long for Mr. Masaoka, Kagari and Ms. Kunizuka to join us at the paddy wagon and without a single word they all got inside waiting to be transported back to the MWPSB. Watching them go into that darkness, the large metal doors closing… Is that really necessary… All of division one’s enforcers, they’re not like the criminals we’ve seen, I know I shouldn’t trust them and I should keep my distance but I just can’t see them as those murderers who take innocent people’s lives. Today, all of them showed me exactly who they are. They could have run off, they had the perfect opportunity to do it but they all came back.

It feels strange walking to the car alone, normally I would sit in the passenger seat while Mr. Ginoza drives but not this time. I wonder what’s happening to him right now. From the other victim’s deaths, I know that their blood was purged out of their bodies from the brachial artery on each arm but exactly how it was done is still unknown. Mr. Kougami believes that it’s a slow procedure so is Mr. Ginoza even conscious right now as his blood is slowly being taken out of his body? Is he afraid? Afraid that he might die?

I know he might be hard on me, strict and maybe a little too much at times but I know he does mean well in his own way. He’s a good person deep down, just like that time I had to take the metro one morning and there was this middle aged woman who had been trying to sell a bunch of roses to be able to get by because she had lost her job. She was only charging a dollar for each rose but when I entered the metro she was crying but not of sadness but from joy because apparently a young man had bought all of them not long ago, maybe a few minutes before I got on so I just missed him by not much and had asked her to give the roses away for free. I later learned from Yukie that she had seen the man and had been able to take a picture of him and it turned out it was Mr. Ginoza himself of course I never told him that I knew the act of kindness he had done but it was really nice of him to do so.

The drive back to the MWPSB is too quiet, if it wasn’t a problem I would have preferred having at least Mr. Kougami with me to keep me company but that would look as if I favor him over the others-

A ringer from my terminal catches my attention as I quickly answer it when I see it’s from inspector Aoyanagi. “Inspector Tsunemori. Do you have a moment?” She asks but continues anyway without waiting for my reply. “I confiscated some evidence from the Museum much to say I’m not pleased and I don’t think you’ll be either.” Her voice was sharp; I can hear some frustration in her tone as she spoke. “Where are you right now?”

“I’m returning to the MWPSB, I should be there in about ten to fifteen minutes.” I answer back.

“Good I’ll meet you there; I’ll take the evidence to Shion.” She tells me before hanging up in haste. By her tone I know inspector Aoyanagi found something important which also makes me kind of nervous, it can’t be good…

The rest of the drive left me anxious, I couldn’t help but think about what could have been confiscated. From what I’ve heard of inspector Aoyanagi, she doesn’t mess around and if she dared to confiscate something from the museum it has to be serious and just knowing that is what makes it all the worst.

I never walked that fast to Ms. Karanomori’s work lab as I did right now, followed by the enforcers who were chatting amongst each other. Inspector Aoyanagi and her partner were already there waiting for us when we walked in the dimly lit lab.

“Inspector Aoyanagi what did you find?” I ask her trying to look and sound as professional as possible. The last thing I want is for her to view me as someone who is incompetent in their job.

“These.” She points at five paintings on a ten by twelve canvases. The paintings are really well done but the color they were painted with kind of kills the whole beauty though. However, I think I’m missing the point and everyone else has already figured out what it is.

“So that’s what he does with the victim’s blood. He fucking uses it to paint a portrait of his victim with their own blood.” Mr. Kougami voices out. I had not even noticed that but now that Mr. Kougami mentioned it, I can see the similarities of each victim on the individual paintings and knowing that it isn’t paint is making me nauseous.  

“The curator bought the paintings without a second thought. If I had not known any better I would have been just as easily fooled.” Inspector Aoyanagi says as she takes one in her hands to observe.

“Risa, did the curator say who sold him the pieces?” Mr. Kougami asks. I can’t tell if he’s angry but I wouldn’t want to be the murderer right now. Mr. Kougami is taking this too personal.

“Yes, Shion ran the name into the system but it did no good. The name belonged to a five year old boy who died in an accident seven years ago.” Inspector Aoyanagi answers.

Somehow the man giving out a false name doesn’t come much of a surprise, he’d have to be pretty foolish to do that but if you ask me selling those horrifying paintings in such a grand museum can’t have been a smart move on his part.

I quickly glance at my team and Mr. Kougami’s eyes just flat out spell bloody murder. Mr. Masaoka is already by Mr. Kougami’s side to try and calm him down which does little good but never the less he still complies and sits down much to my relief. I can’t have my enforcers go on a rage fit but I’m just astonished at how calm Mr. Masaoka is. His composer is relaxed and focused, I know he must be stressed and worried but he hides it so well.

“Kougami breathe in breathe out.” Inspector Aoyanagi blurts out but it’s not like it did much good, I think it might have only fueled Mr. Kougami’s already present rage. “You know as much as I do that there are no such thing as a perfect criminal and this one isn’t a smart one if he thinks he can sell his monstrosity he calls art and not get caught.” She adds as Ms. Karanomori presses a few keys on her keyboard to make another picture appear of a man holding a canvas so I’ll take it that it must be security footage from the museum.

“That’s right the security cameras in the museum. That was foolish on his part.” I blurt out as I give a smile to Mr. Kougami who has now started to calm down a bit much to my relief.

“I ran a check on his face we manage to get from the security footage in our database and I can say we have a match.” Ms. Karanomori states as she opens up a file of a man in his mid-thirties, brown hair and brown eyes. The database says that he’s unemployed due to being terminated for being unreliable and poor performance; he used to work as a technician a year ago.

“So that’s his stressor.”

“What do you mean Mr. Kougami?” I ask which I know should be quite obvious…

“He lost his job a year ago, about the same time the killing started. He has knowledge in technology, it all makes sense now.” He explains and  I guess it makes sense but why start committing murder by losing his job? That is what just doesn’t make sense to me but for Mr. Kougami it all makes perfect sense and it just fascinates me how he works like that. Mr. Kougami can just take all those random information and mold them together and it just makes sense when he says it, it’s just amazing.

“That’s how he gets his victims. He chooses his victims, hacks into their home security system causing problems and he uses that opportunity to act the Good Samaritan. In this day and age, you don’t suspect a single thing being odd about someone wanting to give you a hand.” He further explains and he’s right. With the systematic scanners are scattered all around the city, you just come to believe that you are completely safe that the person right next to you isn’t going to hurt you. Now a days it just isn’t unusual for people to not lock their homes anymore, we’ve just gotten so careless when it comes to security and that’s a problem…

“Now that you mention it Kougami, Ginoza did mention he was having troubles with his security system that it was always lagging about a month ago on and off.” Risa states.

“Nothing was wrong with his security system when we inspected his place; it just hadn’t been turned on.” Kagari mentions as he looks at the blood paintings with disgust.

Ms. Kunizuka personally checked the security system herself and was able to say for certain that it had not been turned on at all. It’s either Mr. Ginoza just forgot to turn it on or it was hacked and turned off by the murderer but one thing is for sure Ms. Kunizuka had said that it was in perfect condition when she checked it…

Looking at this man’s picture, he looks so nice and normal but when I look closer I can see something is definitely wrong in his eyes. However, it’s not the same look in his eyes as the previous killers we’ve already encountered but there’s without a doubt something about them and I don’t know if it’s because I know now that this man had Mr. Ginoza but he makes me sick. Why would someone do such a vile thing? It just doesn’t make any sense to harm someone and most of all just knowing that he kills his victims just to use their blood to make paintings and sell them, it’s just wrong. Everything is just so wrong.

“So what now. How do we find him?” I ask as I continue looking at his information on the screen. “From what the database says, his home address is unknown because his former address has been vacated but he must be doing his kills somewhere.”

“Abandoned buildings. That’s where I’d check first.” Inspector Aoyanagi suggest.

“Abandoned buildings… I don’t know Risa, just sounds too predictable for this guy. He wants to play a game but he also doesn’t want to be found and that’s what sets him off.” Mr. Kougami explains catching inspector Aoyanagi’s attention. “He enjoys watching his victims die, the longer the better, he loves watching them bleed to death but he also feels a thrill knowing a hunt is going on. He didn’t make this crime known for no reason; the previous ones just didn’t attract the attention he wanted. Now he has it and I’d be ready to bet on that he did on purpose to sell those paintings at that museum just to get the race moving.” He further explains.

I have to agree with Mr. Kougami on this one, everything seems to be falling into place too quickly and way to easy. Mr. Ginoza hasn’t been missing for twenty four hours yet and we already have a huge lead but I feel like we might not be as close to solving this case as we think. This man, Izaya Hinamiya is without a doubt a cunning man. He’s murdered five people already and yet he hasn’t been flagged by a single street scanner, he manages to avoid them all which can’t be an easy thing to do I’m sure.

“Is division two still going to give us assistance?” I inquire, not wanting to sound needy but the more people I have to work on this case the better it will go. I know I can’t do this on my own but I don’t understand why she would even want to help us since chief Kasei gave division one the job into finding Mr. Ginoza and apprehend the murderer while division two has no obligation to even cooperate with us.

“I’m not stopping until Ginoza is found and safe. Division three can take over anything that comes up I think they can manage it.” She states and from the sound of it I’d say that she’s not very fond of Division three, I wonder if she’s had some sort of confrontation with them in the past.

“At worst my partner can handle herself in the field.” Inspector Aoyanagi adds. She seems to have so much confidence in her partner, I wonder if Mr. Ginoza has that same similar confidence in me? Would he be at ease leaving me on my own to deal with unexpected cases just like Inspector Aoyanagi would be willing to do? Somehow I don’t think he would…

Without a doubt inspector Aoyanagi is dead serious in helping to the very end, her resolve is undeniable but why? If something happens to her unit the fault will be on her shoulders entirely for being the one who independently decided to go along division one so why risk it but right now I need all the help I can manage to get.

“There’s definitely something more to this guy than what we think. By what we’ve gathered so far we know he’s intelligent and cunning. So far it’s been child’s play, he must know this so we better start being cautious or we’ll be walking right into the palm of his hand, the real game begins now.” Mr. Masaoka states and I can’t disagree and that’s what I fear, we just hit the tip of the iceberg and the real problem is still beneath…


	4. Chapter 4

** \- Chapter 4 ** **-**

**Kougami**

Pouring all the rage I’ve been holding in all day on the punching bag was what I needed the most, trying to remain calm during this case proves to be more of a challenge just knowing that Gino may turn out just like Sasayama.  Seeing his body like that sent me over the edge back then, I don’t know how I’ll be able to bare coming upon Gino’s corpse. To find him just placed wide into the open, just discarded like a piece of trash for everyone to see what would be left of the late senior inspector of the MWPSB. I can’t let that happen, not again I just can’t fail a second time…

Ever since the Specimen Case this is the first time we’ve gotten ourselves a serial killer and this is an odd one without a doubt and to make things worse the unit is down its senior inspector. No matter how much heart Akane has, she still lacks the experience and knowledge in how to deal in such situations but so far I have to say she’s doing quite well to say the least.

Gino is hard-headed and pretty much a sour ass but he is good at what he does. Getting information out of people is one of his strong points. He twists his words in ways that those he interrogates spill out what he wants to know without them even noticing it until it’s too late. It’s just unfortunate that Gino doesn’t give himself more credit for his work, he always doubts himself even when we were in high school, that hasn’t changed…

The sound of the bag coming into contact with my fist is all that fills my quarters, each sound I imagine it being the guy’s skull cracking under my fists as I give a blow right after another.

Every minute counts, we can’t afford to sit back and wait for something to come up. I get that our shifts have ended three hours ago, we all need our rest to properly function however, in this circumstance we can’t take that luxury. If we waste too much time, even if we do save Gino’s life there’s always a possibility that his psycho-pass will pass the point of no return and be demoted to an enforcer and just the thought of that happening makes my blood boil.

Gino has worked hard to get to where he is and he’s endured so much all of his life. He struggled when Pops was taken away from him, watched his mom die and was basically raised by his grandparents. He studied constantly, endured being bullied and even with all of that he’s managed to keep a clear hue and a gentle heart. I’ll be damned if this is what causes him to crash. Fuck no!

I give one last punch at the punching bag, watching it swing back and forth before going to the fridge taking a water bottle out to drink as the sound of the bag still swinging fills my quarters. Staying inside this confinement is enough to make me lose my sanity. Well, whatever is left of it anyway? If it was just up to me, I’d be searching the streets right now, getting all the information I could possibly get. I wouldn’t stop until Gino would be standing right in front of me.

Ever since I met him in high school I’ve always been there for him. No matter what I always had his back until the day I fell into the abyss and never resurfaced. If I hadn’t fallen in that hell hole, I would still be an inspector; I’d be free to look for him right now… Chances are if I wasn’t in this predicament right now all of this wouldn’t have happened in the first place if only I had been there.

I throw the empty bottle that I crushed in my fist into the trash as I exit my quarters. Wandering the empty hall of the CID in silence, passing the other enforcer’s quarters who are either already asleep or still awake doing nothing before stopping at the one at the end of the hall, not bothering to knock on the door as I enter.  

“Kou, I wasn’t expecting you.”

Pops sure is one hell of a poker face. All day he’s either had a lite smile on his face or a neutral expression. He’s still in his suit though, sitting on his couch with a glass of whiskey in his hand and the bottle lying on the coffee table half full.

“Drinking to calm your nerves pops or you’re just drinking for the hell of it?” I ask as I take a seat on the couch in front of him, separated by the coffee table.

“A bit of both…” He answers, giving me a glass of whiskey with that same calm expression he’s had all day. “You’ve calmed down but I can see that you still have that rage inside of you.” He adds.

He’d be right as usual, I’m boiling with rage and I’m doing my best to keep myself in check but it’s harder to do then saying it. I have to keep repeating to myself that I’ll find Gino, I’ll find him alive and he’ll be fine. His hue will still be clear, that he won’t be a latent criminal when I’ll find him that everything will go back to how it were.

“I’ll find Gino that I promise.” I declare taking a sip of my whiskey. “I’ll find him and bring him ho-”

“I don’t doubt it that you will but this case can go either way Kou. I’ve seen enough cases like this to know not to put all hopes on it, we can breathe when it’s all over.” He says followed by a swallow of his liquor.

“You sound as if you don’t believe we’ll get Gino back alive pops.” I blurt out but saying those words definitely hit a sensitive spot. I can only imagine what’s going on in his head right now.

I’ve been friends with Gino for a very long time so sure this is personal for me but for pops it’s got to be the worst feeling knowing that your own kid is somewhere being tortured to death and that he might have to bury his only kid before he goes. That very thought must be excruciatingly painful for a parent to endure.

“There’s nothing I want more than to have my son back here within my sight even if he’ll always be out of my reach that’s fine with me as long he’s well and happy.” He tells me before letting out a sigh, allowing himself to sink into the couch with his glass of whiskey in his hand.

“I never wanted him to follow in my footsteps; I wanted him as far away from this kind of life but if that’s what allows me to see him I’ll accept it. I know that Nobuchika is strong; he will find a way to pull through that’s all I can tell myself so I can continue in this case.” He says as he rubs his forehead. Even if he doesn’t want to admit it, this case is already starting to wear him both mentally and physically down.

“Kou listen to me. This case is personal for each of us, some more than the other but we will do everything we possibly can to get Nobuchika back. We must all keep our heads; we can’t afford to make a single mistake.” He tells me, more like he’s warning me not to get carried away.

“You don’t have to tell me twice pops I know what I have to do.” I assure him. Getting a solid profile on this guy is the most important part to solving this case, putting it all together is the trickier part though.

“I know what this case means to you Kou. I know you fear that we will get to Nobuchika too late, you fear coming upon his body just like you did with enforcer Sasayama.” He states but he couldn’t have been closer to the truth.

To call it fears though… I wouldn’t go has far as to call it fearing but yes it does bother me knowing that fact. I know in every case there is always a chance that you will fail in finding the murderer and prevent an innocent’s death but what makes this worst is that this guy has already managed to kill five people and yet somehow those deaths had never been connected before until now…

He’s not a new murderer who’s still experimenting in his kills, to try and find what he’s comfortable with. He has already established that and that’s the fucking problem. Right now he is completely in control of himself. No fear, no form of anxiety, or that he’ll get caught. He believes that he’s untouchable to the point that he’s now bored so he came up with this game, he’s playing with us.

“We might have diverged paths now but Gino will always be my closest friend. Yes it bothers me that he’s being tortured alive, yes it bothers me that I might find Gino dead but I promise you one thing when I get my hands on that bastard I’ll drive my fist into his fucking skull.” I declare as I empty my glass in a single gulp.

The rage I had managed to calm down is starting to resurface again as I think about what I’ll do to that bastard for harming Gino. I’ll make him regret for even considering making Gino is next victim.

“You think the little missy will let you do that?” He tells me with a grin.

He’s got a point; Akane would never let me murder a serial killer with my own two hands even if they deserved it. She’ll absolutely want this guy to be judged by the damn Sibyl system.

“Talking about the little missy she came by earlier. For her first solo case she’s doing well but she’s shaken and I can’t blame her. Keep in mind Kou that it’s our job to make her job a little easier, not to make too much problems for her. Subdue the criminal and retrieve Nobuchika, that’s all we have to do.” He adds and again, he makes an excellent point.

“She’s doing great considering her lack of experience. She’ll make one hell of a detective one day that’s without a doubt.” I state as Pops gives me a refill.

“She sure will…”

* * *

That whiskey sure hit the spot, after two glasses I had to refuse another fill up and left pops to himself to return to my own quarters for the night. I don’t mind drinking but I also want to be able to think straight tomorrow. I have to come up with something by the start of the next shift. Day two and before we even know it the day will already be over.

I walk back to my quarter, dragging my feet as I enter and was kind of surprise to see Akane going through one of my books sitting on the couch. She quickly jumped to her feet and closed the book in haste with a red face failing to hide her embarrassment terrible and I can’t help but chuckle at her for it which only causes her to become even redder much to my amusement.  

“I thought you went home already inspector.” I tell her as I enter closing the door behind me. I see she was looking through my old high school photo album, my fault for not putting it away I guess.

“Yeah I was about to but I had to talk with Mr. Masaoka first. He doesn’t even feel confident that we’ll find Mr. Ginoza in time, I feel like he knows something that I don’t but he just doesn’t want to say it.” She states. Her expression is gloomy, matching her tone as she held the photo album closer to her chest sitting back on the couch.

“He’s got something in the back of his head; I won’t deny that much but he’s probably just not sure so he doesn’t say anything not to lead us off.” I answer back taking a water bottle out of the fridge.

“All the enforcers don’t seem to be too worried about all of this. Everyone is in their quarters doing the same old things as if nothing is wrong, is it just me that’s worried?” She asks.

“No we’re worried about Gino’s condition and safety too it’s just that everyone’s way of dealing with that stress is just different but I can tell you that we are all on edge. We’re just better at hiding it that’s all.” I reply as I make my way to the couch to sit next to her.

“Sorry about snooping, this was on your table… Other than these pictures, I’ve never seen Mr. Ginoza smile before. He actually really looks happy in these… What was the event? Everyone is all dressed so formally.” She asks as she goes through the photo album page by page bringing back old memories to my mind with each one she flips.  

“It was our high school graduation. Our class wanted an old tradition ball, a prom as they liked to call it back then. All the guys had to wear tuxedos and the girls had to wear these elegant gowns and apparently it was a sin if two girls had the same dress.” I explain not able to hold in a small laugh as I think back at the argument three girls had because they had been wearing the same dress it was just hilarious watching them fight over something so trivial.

“I have to admit, it was way more fun than I had thought it would have been.” I add.

Those sure were the good old days; we didn’t have anything to worry about back then. All we wanted was to protect people and that’s what we did, we became inspectors but it didn’t take long for us to realize that the world we lived in was nothing more than an illusion created by the Sibyl system. It won’t take Akane long to realize that too, sooner or later she’ll realize just how sick and twisted this world is all on her own and what she makes out of it will be all up to her in the end.

“Mr. Ginoza went to the prom with inspector Aoyanagi?” She suddenly asks rather surprised eyes glued on the picture with Gino and Risa photographed together. Risa in her strapless crimson dress that showed her figure quite well with a split on the front left of her skirt revealing even more skin while Gino wore a simple tuxedo with a crimson tie to match Risa’s dress; I have to admit they looked good together that’s for sure.

The next picture was a group picture including some girl I just can’t remember her name other than she had been dumped without a date at the last minute and I decided that I’d be her date much to her joy since I didn’t have one. To be honest I had actually forgotten to ask someone out so it was just luck that she had been stooped but because of that, my tie didn’t match her dress but oh well we had fun anyway…

“Yeah that was my doing, Gino didn’t have a date and neither did she. During our time in high school Risa had the biggest crush on Gino. Like usual he was totally oblivious to it, I think he still is to this day.” I explain followed by a laugh just thinking about those two and how I wasted my time matching both of them together for that event causing me to forget my own date in the process.  

It’s never been much of a secret that Risa has had a crush on Gino and the fact that she still does is no mystery. She flirts with him at any possible moment she has while Gino on the other hand never even seems to notice her advances. Pops and I have given him slight hints on different occasions but he never caught on and that one time with Sasayama… That was just hilarious how he had been teasing Gino about how Risa was with him but again always completely oblivious.

“Explains why inspector Aoyanagi wants to help find Mr. Ginoza so badly…”

“Risa would do anything for Gino and in a way he’d do anything for her but when it comes to a relationship he’s a total idiot.” I state taking the album from Akane’s hands, placing it back in the bookshelf where it belongs.

“You’re still thinking about Izaya aren’t you?” I ask.

“Yeah… Did you know that he lost his wife and little girl three years ago?” She tells me and quite frankly no I didn’t know that Izaya once had a wife and daughter which make things rather strange if his stressor was the loss of his job… It would make better sense if the death of his family had been the stressor instead so that could mean that he might not have killed just five people. Maybe more but with different M.Os…  

“I looked into his file more and from the report he was a good worker but his performance dropped after he lost his family in a car accident and it ended that he lost his job. How can a human being with such a clean slate even become a murderer, I just can’t understand it.” She adds.

“Push someone too much over the edge and they’ll eventually fall or push back. Some go down so hard that they can never come back but first thing’s first we have to pick him up. We’ll leave that to Risa to handle, we’re going to stop by professor Saiga tomorrow, if someone can help make things clearer for us it will be him.” I tell her. I can’t help but have this feeling that we’re just being played here so getting Saiga’s word in this case will be more than helpful.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything starts going downhill from here...

**\- Chapter 5 -**

**?????**

Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. There lies its immense value. For what it seeks is to disturb monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine.

In this world that’s what it is, simply a machine that governs each and decides what you should be doing instead of your greatest passions. Art is the largest form of creativity, there is no right or wrongs in art. Unfortunately, Sibyl has taken people’s free will out of the equation to express one’s self. Art is now dull; it has become nothing more than an empty shell of its former self.

A machine that determines everything for you from your career right to whom you shall marry, now tell me if that makes any sense. As the younger generation slowly starts taking over, the old ones are either becoming nothing more than lab rats within a box for this system, get eliminated or they simply allow themselves to degrade to fit the ideals of a machine.

We now live in a world where people are no longer necessary, each to a number. You no longer need others, where anyone can be simply replaced like a spare part. This society is like a ranch, the Sybil system is the rancher and the people are the livestock. Obeying every command given to them like a bunch of mindless fauns but I refuse to live this life like that. I want the splendor that this world possesses and everything in it belongs to me to take.

I for one could never allow myself to be degraded by a piece of machinery, oh no now that would be just unacceptable. Sit back in silence and watch this world turn would be too boring when there are so many possibilities to explore. So much canvases to fill and yet the perfect models are so rare these days. They lack the true beauty, anything modified from the original form immediately lost its radiance and are worth nothing.

What a dazzling beauty, the perfect model for my many masterpieces to come… How long I’ve cultivated my patience for this moment, the moment to have this beauty into my grasp. All of my work has been rewarded with this grace on my table who’s slowly starting to wake in my presence.

There is just something about a man that I just can’t resist when hearing their muffled sounds that they make as they try to free themselves not long after they’ve woken up. It has a tone that isn’t usually present in their normal voice. Watching them squirm until they realize that no matter how much they struggle they’ll never move and it only makes it all the better as their eyes give out a special message to me but his are different, there’s something else in his eyes or perhaps those glasses are only concealing what they are trying to say.

His gaze fixed on me as I shift my position towards my precious, taking the thin frames between my thumb and index; they seem so fragile in my hands as I discard them on the small table that stood next to me with the rest of my tools… Fragile frames to match his delicate facial structure and his eyes are such a beautiful shade of green. Even more beautiful than all the others combined, his are just like dazzling emeralds.

His green eyes have always captivated me and yet he has always obstructed them behind such hideous things that do not seem to be of any use at all to him. The glass in the frame has absolutely no strength and thus serving no purpose other than to hide his gorgeous face which is such a shame but only further meaning that this look I’m seeing is only for me.   

His hair feels like silk through my fingers just as I had imagined it all those years ago when I’d dreamed of this moment and now he is all mine to touch the loose strands framing his flawless face. His raven hair only helps to make those green orbs stand out ever more while making his smooth light ivory skin look even fairer.

Muffled sounds escape his throat through the fabric gag, shaking his head trying to remove my hand from touching his delicate face as I take hold of it with both hands. His skin feels so smooth and warm under my own skin as I carefully inspect every inch of his face from chin down all the way up to his forehead as he fights to free himself from my grasp.

“Not a single visible pore, you are a perfect model...” I voice out.

No moles, no brown spots or any other type of discoloration of the sort and by a wonderful miracle no scars from that god forsaken job of his. How terrible it would have been if his pretty little face had been damaged. It would have been such a darn shame.

I allow a sigh to slip off my lips as I release his face. “How sad that you do not remember me Nobuchika, I for one have not been able to forget about you.” I state as I admire every inch of his facial structure just a bit longer. Still almost hard to believe that I finally have my precious Nobuchika here, how glorious.

The confusion in his eyes are the most amusing as he goes quiet looking around the room with those green orbs of his. Are the memories slowly returning as he searches this room with his eyes I wonder? If he doesn’t, that is alright for now. He will come to remember me and forget about everything else for nothing should be more important to him than I.

“The road had been long but I never withered away from making you my last. In my lifetime I have murdered twenty-one human beings, I have committed thousands of burglaries, robberies, larcenies, arsons and, last but not least, I have committed sodomy on more than a thousand male human beings.” I state, describing only briefly the things I have marvellously accomplished.

His eyes jolt back towards me as if filled with fear at what I’ve just told him but that’s not the look I want to reflect into those eyes of his but I’ll change that in time. Nobuchika will learn that I’m all that he needs, all that he ever needed and there won’t be anything else of importance in his eyes. Nobuchika will adore me, he will love me and I will make certain that he will not be able to live without me.

I take the cold metallic scissors off my tool table as I bring them near the fabric of his clothing, cutting the cotton fabric of his jacket slowly just so I do not accidentally damage the soft tissue of his skin as he struggles on the table.

“For all these things I am not in the least bit sorry. I have no desire whatever to reform myself. My only desire is to reform other people who try to reform me and I believe that the only way to reform people is to kill them.” I add as I continue cutting the fabric with difficulty due to his constant struggling to free himself but that’s alright…

I can’t help but smile at his attempt, I know that Nobuchika is intelligent enough to realize that his efforts are simply pointless and yet he still tries none the less as more muffled sounds escape his throat as he yanks on his restraints holding his wrists down to the table.

I take my time cutting one sleeve and then the next until I can simply yank the loose fabric of what remains of his jacket before turning my attention to his dress shirt as one by one I unbutton the small buttons of his shirt all the while he struggles making the process ever so sweet until I can just move away the fabric revealing his bare upper body and just as I had expected, it’s pure perfection.

His skin is smooth as velvet with no chest hair, no birthmarks or moles and how lovely that there are no scars either much to my delight. Nobuchika is without a doubt a beauty with no equal and he’s all mine.

I finish cutting of the fabric of his shirt, removing its obstruction away of his arms before I reach out for a bottle of alcohol and some cotton balls, pouring the liquid unto them to wipe his inner arms clean where the brachial artery is located as I ignore his squirming on the table.

“I was born with the devil inside me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing…” I tell him as I make sure that I have properly disinfected his arms. I certainly can’t have my precious Nobuchika become ill now can I? “I was born with the evil one standing as my sponsor beside the bed where I was ushered into the world, and he has been with me ever since.” I add, satisfied of my work.

Nobuchika has such a slender, graceful, and delicate figure, even when he was much younger none could compare to his svelte body and with all the years that have passed since then he just bloomed exactly how I had always known he would have.

I have absolutely no intention of allowing my Nobuchika to leave, not after I’ve worked so hard to have him. I’ll have my own thrills with those he works with and the one I truly want dead is rather out of my reach at the moment… With one stone I’ll get two birds, only the first bird is mine to keep while the other must terminated, taken completely out of the picture.

“You learn what you need is to kill and take care of the details… It’s like changing a tire… The first time you’re careful… By the thirtieth time, you can’t remember where you left the lug wrench.” I further explain as I reach for the first needle soaked in alcohol; taking precious care to carefully wipe it dry before taking a hold of his right arm sticking the needle into his brachial artery as he lets out a few more muffled sounds as blood starts to flow through the tube connected to the needle.

I take a metal clasp and tighten the tube to slow the flow of the blood to a minimum draining speed and I repeat the same thing with the other arm. His blood is of a bright red with a slight dark hue to it. The metallic scent fills my nostrils as I listen to the first drops of blood fall into the glass jar on the floor under the table, such a sweet melody.  

“You feel the last bit of breath leaving their body. You’re looking into their eyes. A person in that situation is God!” I add as his eyes widen in shock before he tries to struggle again but he calms down fast enough, those needles must certainly be painful when he moves like that.

Such a beautiful model for always hiding behind so much layer of clothing and I was simply just dying to see for myself what was hiding under that jacket and dress shirt. A smooth chest and by the looks of it, it does not look like any has grown yet at his age which is most surprising. His stomach is ripped with delicate soft muscles; his chest is hard and yet frail.

His breathing is starting to become more rapid and short as I lick the soft skin of his neck up to his ear. My lips merging with his warm skin as I bite into his flesh; fresh blood meet my tongue as he muffles some sounds as I suck on the escaping blood, the taste is so sweet it’s almost intoxicating. His body has tensed up under my touch as his muffled sounds start to sound more as meer whimpers…    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not even sorry.


	6. Chapter 6

** \- Chapter 6 - **

**Kougami**

~ Day 2 ~

I’ve been locked up as an enforcer for three damn years and only in that short period of time things have changed. The urban area is pretty much abandoned now as nature took over back what was hers. Basically erasing what we humans did to it in the past, quickly healing now that we humans no longer seem to care for it like our ancestors did. Pops would often recount how things were before the Sybil system was introduced into society; people would actually do things outdoors and just go on the wild unknown adventure but not today. In this day and age, everything is already pre-determined for you, all you have to do is follow the oracles of the Sybil system and you’re set.

The whole thing might sound like a good idea if you think about it real quick. To obey the Sybil system so you can live a healthy and happy lifestyle for the rest of your boring damn life but it’s only once you stop and really think about it how twisted that thought really is and once you allow yourself to make those single thoughts, it won’t be long until your locked up and forgotten.

I can’t say that I got much sleep last night not like I sleep much anyway but I couldn’t stop thinking about this case and I must say that I was rather surprised to see Akane so early this morning. She had already contacted Saiga when she came to see me this morning, ready to head off to the good old professor of mine.

Although Akane hasn’t said anything, I can tell by her expression that she’s got no clue as to why we are now in the urban area instead of the city. I never did mention to her that the professor doesn’t enjoy the city life; actually he loathes the very idea of being near anything that is a hologram and in a sense can’t say that I blame the man. Yeah I guess holograms can look good but it ain’t natural; out here in the wonders of nature is truly what I’d call freedom.

Gino is always lurking in the back of my mind, I always keep trying to imagine what’s currently happening to him at this very moment and it just kills me. When things like this happen, it always happens to someone else, to someone that you just don’t know or barely know. It doesn’t happen to you or the ones you are close to, that’s what we all say...Crazy saying, a stupid one if you ask me…

“Mr. Kougami are you sure that we should have left inspector Aoyanagi the job to apprehend the suspect?” She asks killing the long silence that filled the car for a while now since we left the MWPSB.

Her concern is understandable but she can’t split herself into two either and should simply take the offer that has been given to her without question but I get her feelings too. Division one is the unit that has been charged to apprehend the criminal and retrieve Gino, it’s our duty and as the only inspector available for the division every decisions lies on Akane’s shoulders and thus meaning she needs to be the one leading in this investigation. However she also has to understand that she can’t do everything on her own even if she has the heart, will and power to do it.

“Risa said she could handle it so you should let her.” I simply answer not bothering to hide my boredom while looking outside from my window.

“I just thought it would be better if division one was the one to take him in that’s all.” She voices out.

Can’t say that she doesn’t have a point, yeah it would give division one the highlight for catching a five time murderer but it’s not as if it will be worth much in the long run though. I think what Akane hasn’t realized yet is that as the main division on this case; it is our job to gather as much information as we can to narrow down in order to come up with a solid profile.

Izaya Hinamiya is currently missing, we don’t know where the man is hiding and finding him might take hours to even days and that’s just time we don’t have. Allowing Risa and her division to search for Izaya is much more beneficial for this investigation. We gather information while another team searches the streets and besides I know Saiga. He wouldn’t help in an investigation just for anyone but I know he’ll help me out so I have to go myself so meaning that Akane has to come with me. It just can’t be helped in this situation.

“Gathering information is just as important as actually getting Izaya. If we know too little about his motives and all we have is a security camera footage it won’t be enough to put actual pressure into interrogating him.” I explain as I remove my gaze off the scenery outside and on to her instead before continuing. “We have to find out where Gino is being held, normally we would point the dominator and allow the Sibyl system to decide its verdict and be done with it but we can’t take the chance that it goes into lethal eliminator, we need information from him first or we might never find Gino alive.”

That’s the hard part and I wish Gino hadn’t removed his terminal when he got home that night. Things might have been much easier if he had it with him, we might have been able to track his location with it but now, we have to capture that bastard alive and get him to spill out the information that we need.

If Gino is still alive and Izaya truly turns out to be the actual murderer and we kill him, we don’t know just how long Gino can fair until we actually find him. An average human being can survive seven days without food or water but we know that the murderer is killing his victims by draining their blood in a certain method so we just can’t take that gamble.

“Yeah but chances are Izaya is with Mr. Ginoza right now. When division two finds him, Mr. Ginoza should be around the area also right?” She states but that would be a foolish mistake to assume.

“Not necessary. Don’t forget Akane that this man must be doing something else for a living and that means whatever he does during the day, he won’t be near Gino. The guy on the security camera looked way too clean to be homeless and jobless.” I further explain my reasoning but I can tell she’s not totally convinced but she doesn’t try to further the argument as silence consumes the car again as she turns her terminal on to check on something before turning back her attention towards me.

“Professor Jouji Saiga, it says that he’s a retired college professor. How can he be of some help to us in this case?” She asks and I can’t help but chuckle at the question as I stretch my arms to relieve the cramping.

“Professor Saiga specialises in human psychology. He used to be the one to prepare and form inspectors in the MWPSB into criminal profiling. I, Gino and Risa were all students of his before his retirement, actually we were his last students.” I explain. “If there’s one person that can help us figure out more about this sociopath, it’s him.”

I place my hands in the back of my head, leaning back in my seat as I glance towards Akane she seemed amazed that Saiga was the one who thought me psychology or that she’s now comparing me with Gino and Risa which is a normal thing to do but each of us have our own strength and weaknesses so doing so isn’t the smartest move to make.

“I know what you’re thinking Akane. You think Gino doesn’t match up to me.” I blurt out catching her by surprise as she looks at me with this embarrassed look on her face proving me right.

On this job the last thing an inspector should do is doubt his or her own partner. Out on the field the only ally you should trust is your partner and no one else. Yeah you can have faith in your enforcers but the thing is and I know that’s something Gino has been trying to get into Akane’s head for a while now and that is not all enforcers are like division one’s. We would never turn on our shepherds nor would we try to run off on them either but other enforcers would, some would even try to harm their shepherds if they see an opportunity. So in a sense you can say we’re the abnormal enforcers within the CID. 

“Gino is just as good as I am but he doubts in his own abilities causing him not to perform to his full potential but trust me when I say this, Gino can be a great detective if only he’d stop putting himself down all the time that would help.” I tell her and I know if Gino hears about what I just said he’ll choke me himself but I’m not the type to hide the truth. Akane would have picked it up eventually on her on anyway, best to let her know about one of her partner’s weak points.

If you don’t know Gino and I’m sure Akane made that same mistake, if you don’t know him you’d think that he’s this calm and confident individual who gives the impression of being incredibly together and organized but the reality is that Gino is riddled with so much anxiety and insecurities and the source of it all well I for one am a factor and so is Pops. The rest well it’s all intertwined…

The car takes a turn into a narrow road leading deeper into the forest and not long after, I’d say about five minutes a large house started coming into view. Saiga’s house made almost entirely of bricks and concrete with large windows. The glass structure of Saiga’s greenhouse attached to the side of his house is basically its focal point. The landscape is just like I remembered it to be. The calm features of the natural mini falls flowing into a small stream is soothing to look at and it just blends well with the scenery of the forest.

I quickly give a glance towards Akane, she has this amazed expression on her face, I seriously wonder if she has ever left the city before? I’ll take my guesses that she hasn’t so seeing nature’s wonders like this must be almost breathtaking for her and just assuming that, I can’t help but let out a faint smile form on my face.

The car comes into a stop and we get out making our way to the house as I go straight to the door not wasting any time to ring the doorbell while Akane looks around, not mining as the professor answered through the intercom and I alerted him that we had arrived.

“I don’t see much environment Holo being used here.” She asks.

“That’s because that kind of stuff irritates the hell out of him.” I answer back and quite frankly why have any of that shit all the way out here in the first place when you have all the real things and better.

The front door finally opens and we’re greeted by Saiga and although I hadn’t seen him in so long he hasn’t changed one bit. He still looks like a nerd dressed the way he does which is how Risa used to call his fashion sense back in the day and always rocking that messy ass beard of his.

I press my luck calling him by his former title which he never the less doesn’t fail to remind me how many years since he quit and to not address him by professor anymore. We exchange a few more words before he lets us into his home before turning his attention towards Akane as she formally introduces herself at her turn.

“Did you have time to oversee the files we sent this morning professor?” I ask getting a stare from Saiga in return as I pretend not to be aware of it as I make my way to his living room, taking a seat next to Akane while Saiga goes to the kitchen and offers some coffee before joining us, taking a seat in a chair on the other side of the coffee table in front of me.

“Yes I have. I must say when Miss Akane Tsunemori contacted me earlier for a meeting about a specific case, I wasn’t aware that one of my former students was the victim.” He states taking a sip of his coffee.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t aware that Mr. Ginoza was one of your students when I contacted you.” Akane quickly apologizes but Saiga simply gives her a warm smile and dismisses the need for an apology much to her relief.

“Could you make out anything from the evidence collected or anything that stood out?” I further inquire.

“The documents are incomplete.” He blurts out with a stern expression much to my dismay but I had a feeling that would have been the case. “There are obviously missing victims, it is impossible for someone to be this good with only five kills, you would be looking at one with over twenty body counts if not more and that is ignoring any other crimes this individual has committed.” He adds as he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

I glance at Akane and I can tell that she wasn’t expecting an answer like that from the professor as she struggles to keep her composure but still manages well however she can’t hide the fact that her brain is probably on overdrive asking so many questions in her head right about now.

“Furthermore from what I can tell by the pictures provided, the pierced wounds on the arms were poorly made, you can tell this individual has no proper techniques in handling a needle but he has improved by the last body however it is to be noted that no form of infections were found on any of the bodies or were any of them found to be dehydrated or malnourished but their stomachs were completely empty therefor meaning that the individual has a basic knowledge in medicine and first aid.” Saiga explains.

I remember reading about the autopsy report. It’s something that came out as strange to me, well Shion was the one to point it out and I just further looked into it. By that I came to the conclusion that our fucking bastard probably draws blood intervals, keeping the victim alive as long as possible and must use some sort of serum to keep his victims from dying but that’s just my theory.

“Only these five came to a match in the database.” Akane quickly states and that’s another thing if he has killed before, would it mean that he only just recently changed his M.O and just decided to go with specific traits and killing technique? If so that’s a huge leap and we can assume that his killing method is now absolute to him.

However, I know what she’s thinking, that there has to be some sort of mistake but it’s something that I’ve been pondering with since last night, since Akane told me about Izaya’s family having died three years ago. I couldn’t help but think that those kills were too good, too right; even for body number one it was almost too perfect for being a first kill.

“This man’s psycho-pass must be extremely high, he would have been flagged by a street scanner but he hasn’t.”  She further adds but avoiding the street scanners isn’t that much of an impressive feet. I’ve seen it be done over and over again in this job so for this lunatic being able to do it isn’t one bit surprising.

“In the past some criminals claimed that committing crimes reduced their stress levels and assuming this man finds relief in killing could explain why he has never been caught. His crime coefficient lowers until his stress level rises again and he needs to kill.” Saiga states and Pops has mentioned the exact same thing to me before and although it doesn’t make much sense I wouldn’t rule it out as impossible either.

“What are we looking at professor?” I ask as I feel my frustration slowly starting to build back up knowing that Risa’s search really is going to lead up to absolutely nothing in the end.

“By these kills I’ve seen from the files, your man is intelligent, cunning and cruel. I’d say he’s a man in his late thirties or early forties. He sees himself as a god but if you ask me these previous kills were only for practice for the real thing.” Saiga answers as he pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose again.

“I believe that Ginoza has always been the real target right from the star. All his last victims share similar trait and from the hospital records they also shared the same blood type.” He adds as he continues. “To answer as to why this individual would set his eyes onto Ginoza could be for many reasons. Could be some sort of grudge, jealousy or it might be meant for someone else entirely and if I’m not mistaken his father was once a detective also but was demoted to an enforcer. The attack on Ginoza could be meant for him or could be meant for the person he was closest to.” He adds as he gives me a look and I get where he’s going with this and just thinking that Gino might have fallen victim because of me makes my blood boil.

But… It makes sense if the fucking bastard had always been targeting Gino right from the get go. It would explain why the five last victims all shared similar trait to him but if you ask me I’m getting the vibe that there is something seriously wrong with that bastard’s head and somehow I don’t know why but I don’t think Izaya is our guy and if not how the hell did he even get his hands on those paintings in the first place?

“Tsunemori here.”

I look at Akane when she spoke, looks like she got a call and by her expression it isn’t good news and Saiga just has this calm smile on his face as he takes a sip on his coffee. Probably he already knows exactly what the call is about and what news Akane just got. He always gets it right but right now it isn’t making things any better, I know the real fucker is still with Gino and that’s a problem.


	7. Chapter 7

**\- Chapter 7 -**

**Ginoza**

A light throbbing in my head is the first thing that greets me as I open my eyes, blinded by the light over me until my eyes get accustomed gradually. My vision is a bit blurry at first before it slowly starts to adjust.

I feel woozy and even though I know I just woke up I feel so tired and weak. It took me a few minutes to figure out where I was… The memories from earlier quickly come rushing back through my mind. The images, the sound and his voice all of it is as if they are still happening but I know it’s all in my head but it won’t stop.

I’m uncomfortable, my back hurts but I can’t move to change my position, the restraints on my wrists and ankles won’t allow me and I feel like it’s suffocating me. My eyes trail down to my wrists, much to my surprise that they’ve been treated and covered in bandages. I remember from earlier I had tried so hard to get free, pulled and pulled until the leather straps had cut into my skin but all of that effort came in vain in the end. The only thing that it did me was cause more pain and the constant burning and throbbing in my wrists serves as a reminder that it all had been real, that none of this is a nightmare and it’s not something I will wake up from no matter how many times I close my eyes.

I’m not sure when I passed out from having so much blood taken from me or how long I was out cold but it would seem that whoever this man is, decided that he no longer wanted to drain me of my blood since the needles that were in my arms are no longer there and have been replaced instead by bandages and an I.V has been attached on my left arm to keep my body from becoming dehydrated from the blood loss and such.

Can’t say that I’m thrilled… He’s never going to let me go as long as I’m still alive, I know that… He’s not keeping me alive just for fun and the more I think about it, I can’t stop my body from trembling. I’ve seen a lot of crime scenes, so many corpses, I’ve seen more than I should and yet I’m afraid. I know I shouldn’t but I’m just so afraid.

I take a deep breath to try and calm myself and at the same time trying to ignore the bad taste in my mouth from the gag as I look around as much as I can. This room looks like an art studio except some things in here sure as hell isn’t used for art, well it’s not supposed to be but considering how mentally unstable this man is it wouldn’t surprise me if he would use it for something totally in-human.

Please let it be that he’s not planning on using those sharp things on me please. I don’t know if I can handle it. It was already bad enough listening to my own blood dripping in a glass jar not being able to move or anything, just that alone was torturing enough I don’t think I can handle much more… My neck is still sore from where he bite me earlier and somehow I can still feel him there.

I don’t know who this man is and yet I know I’ve seen him somewhere before, his voice is familiar to me and yet I can’t remember where I could have met him. I honestly thought that he was going to kill me when he started draining my blood, he could have but he didn’t so why unless he plans to do something even worst with those tools over there and just the thought of it that he could use those diabolical things to further cause damage to my body, they seem even more frightening with each passing minute.   

The sound of a door opening in the distance made my heart skip as I quickly close my eyes pretending that I’m still asleep and hoping that I can pull it off without him noticing that I’m in fact awake. Maybe he’s the type of killer who enjoys torturing his victims when they are conscious so if I can fake being unconscious I might get spared for any further pain for now.  

I hear footsteps getting closer and without a doubt they are definitely his. Slow, heavy, long steps as I feel his hand brush on my chest down to my stomach.

“Are we the sleeping beauty?”

My eyes jolted open at his words as I met his dark eyes locked unto me like a craved animal. This man creeps the hell out of me, no worst he really scares me. There’s something seriously wrong with him and I just don’t like the way he looks at me.

“You know in Giambattista Basile's tale?” He asks as he removes his jacket, never removing his eyes off me and for some reason I can’t look away either. It’s as if something bad will happen to me if I happen to look away.

“A king happens to walk by Sleeping Beauty's castle and knock on the door. When no one answers, he climbs up a ladder through a window where he finds the princess lying on the floor near the spinning wheel. He calls to her, but as she is unconscious, she does not answer.” He explains as he brushes his hand into my hair and at the same time holding my head so I can’t shake him off.

“He then carries the princess to the bed, takes her virtue and afterwards he just leaves. Nine months later the princess awakens after she gives birth because one of her twins sucked the flax from the spindle out of her finger.” He further tells me as I can’t control my body from shivering anymore.

This man is sick, he’s twisted… No he’s worse than that, he’s not human. How can any sane human being be interested in such a tale? It’s monstrous. His tone, his eyes, he’s enjoying everything as he recounts this sick twisted story. Who in their right mind would even write something like that?

“The king comes back, and despite him having raped her, they end up falling in love. However, the king still married to another woman. His wife furious, not only tries to have the twins killed, cooked, and fed to the king, but also tries to burn the princess at the stake. Luckily, she is unsuccessful. The king and the princess get married and live happily ever after.”  He ends his story with a sick smile as he continues to play with my hair before finally removing that damn gag from my mouth before walking away.

His hue must be extremely clouded for how mentally twisted he is and at this rate what about mine?  What’s my crime co-efficient? I can’t become a latent criminal I just can’t. I don’t want to be locked up, it isn’t fair and the more I think about that fate I’ve been trying to avoid so badly for all these years I can only feel my eyes burn as I try to hold in the tears that want to escape. I don’t want to give him that satisfaction.

“What do you think about the old fairy tales Nobuchika?” He asks as he places a canvas on the large table.

“I think they’re psychotic just like you.” I blurt out without thinking about what could be the consequences for my actions. The words just slipped through and even though I’m scared I meant every word.

I’m tired from all the blood loss, even though I’m on an I.V and I’ve been unconscious for who knows how long I just can’t think straight. I feel impatient, nervous and scared and the only thing I want is to close my eyes and wake up in my own bed with Dime licking my face like none of this ever happened.

“Maybe so…” He acknowledges much to my surprise with not much emotion in his voice and yet I can’t help but sense a tone of mockery in it. “What do you think Nobuchika?”

He shows me the canvas he had placed on the table only a few seconds ago and I can’t believe it as I have a sudden urge to be sick. It’s me but worst of all it’s been painted with my own blood. How can someone so mentally deranged have been able to avoid the street scanners?

“My game is going on very well but it’s time to add some obstacles don’t you think my Nobuchika?” He simply states as he admires the sick work he’s done. “I think things are going much too quickly” He adds and I can’t help but wonder what the hell is he even talking about, what game? Is it what this is to him nothing more than a game and I’m just a pawn to further his enjoyment?

He places the canvas back on the table as he picks up a syringe on his tool table with that same wicked expression as before. He doesn’t say anything as he removes the I.V from my arm and sticks the needle of the syringe in my arm quickly injecting the fluid into my veins.

It doesn’t take long for my vision to get blurry again as the room begins to spin. I hear him say something to me but I can’t make out what it is as everything is getting dark and I no longer feel anything… Dad… Please find me…

* * *

  **\- Chapter 7.5 -**

**Aoyanagi**

This investigation is just one big mess in another pile of mess. For starters nothing makes any sense and yet things just fall into place so smoothly and that alone, just doesn’t make sense to me. Yes it’s great that we were able to locate and retrieve Izaya Hinamiya within a single day but it’s just too easy.

Kougami was right though as usual, I had no luck in locating him within the abandon parts of the city, no matter how many people I asked I got nothing and instead it was Mizue that managed to get the information needed from one of his coworkers from his former job. Actually Mizue was able to find out that Izaya had not been fired like it was stated on his file but he was instead suspended for refusing to take time off and refused to get therapy but once he does get the treatment he is required, his employer will take him back with open arms claiming that Izaya is an excellent technician and employee.

From the statement that Mizue gave me, not a single of his coworkers or his employer believed Izaya to be capable of harming another human being. That yes he had been touched by tragedy but he wouldn’t be the type to hurt another. None believed that he could murder five people, let alone one.

After his suspension, one of his coworkers claimed that Izaya left his family home for whatever reason and went to live with his younger sister who works as a free lens photographer. Her working studio being in her own home but what came to me as odd was the address. She lives in the same building as Ginoza and what came to me as even more strange was that she also lives on the exact same floor too and when we got there, my memory had been correct that her condo was just down the hall from Ginoza’s.

Coincidence maybe but it’s just odd. Just thinking back at what Kougami and Masaoka already assumed about the killer it just doesn’t make sense for him to be so careless. Yes he wants to play a game but it wouldn’t be much of a game if he got caught within the second day and of course my doubts became quite clear when we arrived to pick Izaya up for questioning.

The man seemed rather confused but never the less he did not try to flee and was rather cooperative with us and his hue was healthy. Well he’s not over a hundred but his hue is recovering, even now it slightly lowered so he’s not even stressed about being here to get interrogated which only means that he’s got absolutely nothing to hide or maybe he’s just one smooth individual but to me it just doesn’t feel right. Deep down I just know, it’s not him…

Having to walk past Ginoza’s home gave me chills down my spine just knowing something terrible happened to him that night in there but also knowing that I had stopped by to see him that very same night after my shift. However, he didn’t answer when I knocked although I knew he was home at the time I didn’t press on the matter that he didn’t answer, I just brushed it off instead. He seemed so tired after he was done with his shift so I simply figured he must have already gone to sleep and I didn’t want to disturb him so I left.

Knowing what I do know now, was it already done? Did I arrive after Ginoza had been taken away or was it only minutes before the attack took place and the criminal was just watching, waiting for the opportune moment to attack? Either way it’s a question I don’t think I’ll ever know… Chances are that I was the last person to see Ginoza alive and that alone is hard enough to swallow as it is.

The last thing I saw of Ginoza was his exhausted face, my last memories of him… I don’t want that to be my last memory of Ginoza, no I just can’t accept that. I won’t accept that.

So far the interrogation is going nowhere and to make matters worse for this investigation his hue is clear which means that we have no reasons to further detain him but considering how he lost his wife and daughter three years ago and then two years later gets suspended for deteriorating hue, I have to say that I’m impress that his crime co-efficient is only at sixty-seven at the moment and if he’d only go into therapy it would most certainly be even lower. Why he refuses to go is beyond me but he’s doing very well on his own.

“Mr. Hinamiya tell me where you were between the late night of October fourteen and early mornings of October fifteen?” I ask.

“I already told you I was with my sister, helping her with her photography. To help her in choosing a background for her next photo-shoot. How many times must I say it?” He states, never changing his story no matter how many times I asked him the same question but just in different context at random times.

The more I ask and twist the questions he always answers them without hesitation but the more I continue my interrogation I can sense the frustration starting to build up in his tone and yet he never loses his cool and remains neutral still. I seriously doubt it that he’s lying to me, he would have slipped by now which isn’t the case.

I take a file and carefully place a picture of each victim on the table in order and then under each one I place a picture of their corps under the respective victim.

“These men were stalked for thirty days before being abducted and were tortured for another thirty days until they died of blood lost; they had their blood completely drained out of their bodies. Now another one has been abducted, where is he?” I ask, carefully observing the expression of the man before me as he looks at the pictures with evident disgust and yet there’s a bit of sorrow in his eyes.

“I don’t know any of those men. I haven’t killed anyone.” He tells me, taking his eyes off the pictures and directly looks at me in the eyes. “I lost my wife and daughter. I know how it feels to lose someone you love, someone that is your whole world. Do you think I’d kill someone and place others in the same misery I’ve been for the past three years?” He adds, tears starting to flow down his face as he spoke.

I believe him, I believe that he knows nothing about the victims and I strongly believe that he did not kill any of these men but the problem still remains. The fact that he had those blood paintings and sold them, it still ties him to the real murderer.

“Wait a second…” His voice was low after he managed to regain his composer as he dried the tears with his hands off his face. Taking the picture of the last victim within his trembling fingers and his eyes just widen in slight horror.

“I sold a painting about three weeks ago, it looks a lot like him… Actually they all look like the people in the paintings I sold.” He confirms. His expression filled with horror and then quickly turned to guilt as he held his head in his hands finally realizing why he is here and what he’s done.

“That’s how we acquired your face at the museum. You sold five paintings of murder victims.” I answer quickly taking out pictures I took of the blood canvas. “These paintings were painted with the victim’s own blood. If you did not murder these men then who did and how did you get your hands on these?” I add.

“All I know is this guy came to me a year ago. He told me that he was an artist and that he had a painting to sell but he didn’t have the time so he told me that he’d give me twenty percent of how much the curator would be willing to buy if I agreed to sell it for him. I didn’t see a reason not to; it didn’t seem like a bad idea at the time.” He explains. For someone who doesn’t have a job it makes sense that he’d take the offer but it was foolish.

I don’t tell him what crossed my mind but that alone should be rather suspicious but then again we live in a society where you believe everyone near you are safe, that they won’t hurt you. So talking to someone, the thought that maybe he or she could be a murderer doesn’t even cross your mind.

I study the man in front of me as he sits up straight, rubbing his temples with his fingers for a few minutes before asking him if he has a name for me but he denies having an exact name only that the man goes by an initial. Just N.G however, I told tell Izaya that the initial is also probably false. This criminal, this murderer is really starting to get on my nerves.

N.G that’s Ginoza’s initials and if he’s been using that initial right from the start of his first victim then does that mean he always had his eyes set on Ginza right from the start? If so it changes things, we might no longer be looking at just a simple abduction, another victim to kill.

“Did this man ever come near your sister’s complex?” I ask.

“No not that I know of.” He answers much to my dismay.

Not really the answer I was hoping for. It still does not answer how he managed to abduct a man without having anyone noticing. He had to go up to the fourth floor, make his way to the elevator or the stairs. No matter how you slice it there is no way he could have done this on his own, he would have been seen so maybe he has an accomplice that helped him that would make sense… If he had an accomplice then it would explain how he was able to take down Ginoza and Dime at the same time.

“Mr. Hinamiya in the near future may we count on you for further information if need be?” I ask.

“Yes, yes of course.” He confirms without hesitation. At least that’s a little comforting but in the same time disappointing that we still don’t have a solid lead to go on. I got nothing, just further theories.

I get up and give Izaya my hand to shake which he eagerly took as I gave him a farewell and that we would need his cooperation again soon. It did not seem to bother him much rather to the contrary he wanted to help in any way he possibly could.

I exit the interrogation room coming face to face with Masaoka, can’t say he was the one I wanted to see right now. I don’t have any good news to give him; we are just back at step one again with absolutely nothing except that the guy uses Ginoza’s initials as his identity to sell his paintings to art buyers.

“It wasn’t our guy inspector?” He asks as he follows me down the hall.

“No it wasn’t… Are you not surprise Masaoka?” I ask him as I try to study his expression, he’s trying so hard to have a poker face but it’s starting to slip.

“I had my doubts but nothing to back it up with. I had to sit back and see what would unfold.” He replies, stopping at the lounge to sit on one of the couch.

“Izaya told me that the guy uses your son’s initials. What do you think about that?” I tell him as he lets out an exhausted sigh.

“What I think? I think this won’t end well…” He answers.

I can see the pain in his eyes as he spoke those words. Even though he won’t admit it, this case is hard on him mentally. He’s not his best right now, the Masaoka I know would be better than this. He just can’t think straight, he must always be thinking about Ginoza and that hurts his performance but I also can’t blame him either. If I ever have a child and I find myself in his shoes I honestly don’t know what I’d do, I’m not even sure if I could even do anything, I know I’m strong but I think I’d break apart if this would ever happen to me.

I remember when I was a rookie inspector and I got a case that didn’t turn out too well. Masaoka was there to give me comfort when I needed it most even though I wasn’t his inspector he still cared but right now I just don’t know what to say to him and all I can do is walk away with a pain in my heart.

I exhale and inhale a few times before calling inspector Tsunemori letting her know that Izaya isn’t our man. She tells me that they still have a few things to talk to with Saiga before they return to the MWPSB and I let her know that my shift just ended for the day as I make my way out of the building before ending the call.

I gave Mizue the rest of the day off after we brought in Izaya for questioning and I for one deserve a long hot bath once I get home. God knows I deserve it so badly and before I go home I better stop by the store to go get some treats for Nymph otherwise she won’t stop meowing until she gets something. I chuckle at the thought of her begging for food, she’s so adorable; home sure would be rather dull without her around.

I turn on my terminal, quickly checking if I had any unread messages when I get a sudden sharp pain to my head and I’m violently shoved to the ground hitting my head on the cold hard asphalt as everything goes black and all sounds seem to be getting fainter…


	8. Chapter 8

** \- Chapter 8 - **

**Kougami**

“Hey… You alright?” I ask as I touched his shoulder.

He flinches at the contact as he quickly looks up and lowers his arms from his head after a few seconds as if making sure I wasn’t going to attack him the moment he dropped down his guard and studying my expression like he wasn’t certain if I was sincere in my concern for his wellbeing and not some sick joke.

“I’m fine…” He mumbles after a few seconds of odd silence as he avert his eyes away from mine as he spoke and instead stared down to the floor as if he’s trying to hide from my gaze for some reason but considering what just happen it’s understandable.

I pick up the broken glasses off the floor and I can’t help but sigh as I look at them before handing the broken frames to an almost matching owner which he takes after a bit of hesitation, placing the broken frames in his pocket.

“You’re bleeding. You sure you’re alright.” I ask trying to catch his eyes but he keeps avoiding me like I’m the plague.

His right cheek is red and starting to swell, from what I can tell it was caused by a solid punch. His lower lip is busted and bruised. There’s blood coming out of his nose but it’s doesn’t look too bad, it doesn’t look broken or anything and he doesn’t seem to have any other injuries either other than an old bruise near his neck so I’ll assume this isn’t the first time he’s been attacked like this and from the looks of that old bruise I’d say he was strangled.

“Yeah…” He finally answered, whipping his bleeding nose with the top of his hand; starring at the blood for a few seconds before looking away and although he just got beaten pretty bad there isn’t a bit of emotion in his eyes. The look in them are rather lost, numb even and for some reason it bothers me, this isn’t right it just isn’t.

“I’ve seen you at the opening ceremony yesterday and you’re in every single one of my classes but we never had a chance to speak before. I’m Shinya Kougami and you are?” I introduce myself as I extend my hand which he takes after a few seconds, as if trying to process what I had just said in his head, hesitating to give me his hand like he was afraid that I’d hit him once he’d take it meaning it must have happened before and just assuming that makes my blood boil. You just don’t play with someone’s trust, you just don’t.

I help pull him up to his feet as he touches his lower lip, wiping the bit of blood with his thumb. Still not very much fazed with that same numbness in his eyes and I just can’t help but wonder how many times as he seen his own blood spilled like this? Maybe one too many if you ask me…

“Nobuchika Ginoza.” He answers. His voice was low, almost in a whisper as he turned his attention to picking up his books that had been scattered on the floor.

I pick up one of his textbook that was near me, wanting to help as much as I can considering he no longer has his glasses to properly see but the question as to if he truly needs them comes to mind when I watch him in silence. He doesn’t seem to be having any problem to see so maybe he just wears them for show and if that’s the case well I guess I feel less terrible that they are broken, he can see just fine without them.

I hand over the book I had picked up and wait as he finishes picking up all of his belongings before turning around to walk away when I stop to look back to see that he wasn’t even following me like I had hoped and was instead walking the other way instead.

“Hey Gino! You coming or what?” I shout back much to his surprise as he does a little jump and turns around to look at me confused and a bit panicked even. I give him a gesture with my hand, telling him to come along with me instead of walking alone.

He walks up to me holding his books firmly against his chest as I put my arm around his shoulders, ignoring the slight flinch he did and we made our way home…

* * *

… It was just a dream… I’m going to need more than a dream of the past to find the answers that I need to solve this case… What on earth are you enduring right now Gino, that’s the one thing that always lurks in the back of my mind?

It wasn’t very surprising that Izaya turned out to be innocent after all. The thing is that Izaya is just as much of a victim as Gino; he was used to simply further that sick bastard’s game. Izaya was just in the wrong place at the wrong time or was he really? The fact that Izaya is a talented technician, our sick bastard could have specifically chosen him as another way to get us on the wrong track. After all its only logic for us to pursue the idea and he had us, he played us like violins.

To say the least professor Saiga called it right and from what he believes the guy we’re after is someone we’d be least likely to suspect. From looking at the files, Saiga does not believe that our suspect is young, that our best bet is to look for someone older but not too young, more likely to be in his late thirties or early forties.

If that’s the case and that the bastard is that old and Gino has always been the primary target right from the start then this man must have known Gino for some time and if so I should also have seen him at some point in the past, probably a few times too so I should have a memory of this creep somewhere.

The first time I saw Gino was at the opening ceremony of our high school. He would always be sitting in a corner alone studying, not bothering to talk to anyone unless talked to first which was a rare occurrence alone. To be more accurate, it was like Gino was trying to isolate himself completely from the rest of us.

At first I thought he was a total snub, the kind of guy who thinks he’s better than all the rest because he so happens to be smart but that thought quickly changed when I learned that the reason for his silence is because of the constant bullying he receives just because his father fell from grace and became a latent criminal. 

Apparently his old man was a detective and his hue became cloudy to the point that there was no longer any chance of a recovery and because of that he was taken away from his family.

From what I had learned from the other students back then, Gino hadn’t seen his old man since he was nine so basically that day I learned two reasons for his complete silence towards others which were justifiable and it just made me sick to think someone had to deal with being tormented daily for something that’s not even their fault to begin with and being constantly reminded of what you lost is cruel… Being beaten daily because you lost your father due to deteriorating psycho-pass, it’s just sick and it’s wrong.

The next day I found him in the hall being attacked by five senior students while other students just stood there and watched as Gino was on the ground covering his head with his arms as he received kick after kick.  

What angered me the most was that I could hear others laughing and enjoying seeing a defenceless kid being beaten up by five guys who were larger and much stronger than he was and in that moment I just lost it and my body just moved, not taking a second to think about what could happen to me if this turned ugly.

I just lunged into the first guy who seemed to be the leader of the pact, my fist slamming right into his jaw knocking him out in one blow causing the rest to back off as if they weren’t sure exactly what had just happened and no one dared say a thing as they watched to see what else would go down.

I readied myself to fight back. I was sure they’d come at me but no, they instead helped their unconscious friend up and walked away like the bunch of chicken shit they were. The rest of the students awkwardly returned to do what they were doing before the whole commotion had even begun as they passed by giving me a wary eye but none dared to speak against my action.  

I helped Gino get back on his feet and I just couldn’t help but see just how broken he was back then. His eyes so numb, so empty… Eyes that were so used to being beaten and tormented at it almost came to be normal for him but after that day, Gino never left my side and instead of going into his usual quiet corners he’d actually come and find me instead.

Our first conversations were dull, boring and silent but I never gave up and always tried to get him to open up a bit, to get to know him a little better and after a few days my efforts had paid off. After a few days Gino had become more at ease with me and before we knew it, it was like we had known each other for many years.

A few weeks later we met Risa and gradually the three of us just became inseparable from that moment on, actually she first approached us to get closer to Gino but then I was able to befriend her after a while but it was so obvious that she had a major crush on him and with Gino being so oblivious to it, it was just hilarious as I occasionally teased her.

Gino had told us his dream of wanting to become an inspector just so he could protect the innocent and at the time we also wanted the same thing. We wanted to protect people but we all had other motives for going into this field. I wanted to protect people but I also didn’t want Gino to be on his own so I followed him and Risa also wanted to be closer to him and Gino… Well… He never said it out loud but I know it wasn’t just to protect people but that it was the only way that would allow him to see his father again whom apparently had become an enforcer.

The reality of this job sure wasn’t what we thought it would be. In a society that should be filled with peace and prosperity. Once you’re in this job you soon learn that it’s only one big fat lie. The truth is that we don’t live in a world where there are less crime, there is just as much crime as in the past but it’s just hidden away by the Sybil system. It only shows what it wants you to see, and that is nothing but an illusion.

“Mr. Kougami. Do you think this man is out to get revenge or that he has some sort of grudge on Mr. Ginoza for something?” Akane ask taking me out of my thoughts.

I honestly don’t see why anyone would want revenge on Gino for any particular reason; he wasn’t the type to make enemies back in high school. The only problem he had was with bullies that only picked on him because of Pops’ status and not because of whom he was per say.    

“No… Gino wasn’t the type to go running after trouble.” I reply letting out a sigh before adding the rest. “He was a victim of severe bullying when I met him but it wasn’t because of Gino per say, it was all due to Pops being a latent criminal”

After I met Gino, all the ones who used to pick on him and beat him up stopped altogether. Not a single one of them ever laid another finger on Gino because I made sure of it. I never told him what I did, Gino would have been the first to scold me for using violence to end the circle of violence that had followed him for so long but I don’t regret doing it.

Thinking about all that’s been happening lately, I can’t help but wonder if Gino is in this predicament because of what I did in the past. That this bastard has a vendetta against me and is using Gino as a way to hurt me sounds plausible and now that I’m a latent criminal he knows I can’t just go after him so freely. I have to admit if that’s the case; it’s an excellent form of torture.

“Do you think it might be someone who wants to hurt Mr. Masaoka?” She inquires and yeah that too could be a plausible theory but I highly doubt it.

“The only way I see that it could be plausible is if that freak knew Gino when Pops was still a detective.” I state. “Meaning that our sick bastard would have been stalking Gino since the age of nine and if you ask me it’s not exactly something I’d want to imagine.” I further explain and just saying it out louds makes my brain wander. Just the very thought of a grown man stalking a small boy is just beyond sick and that’s not assuming that this freak hasn’t taken a bunch of pictures of Gino during the course of the years for his own amusement.

Besides the ones we went to school with had no idea who Pops was because Gino was given his mom’s surname instead after Pops had been taken away. Apparently it was something she had agreed with her parents that it be better for Gino if he did not wear the name of a latent criminal. They believed by giving him his mother’s maiden name that it would have protected him from the tormenting not that it did any good in the end unfortunately.

By the time I met Gino, his mom had been ill for a very long time and she passed away in the start of our second year of high school but from the short amount of time I’ve known her, I could easily see that she loved Gino more than anything in the world. I think the only thing that made her fight her fatal illness was the fear that her only son would be left alone in this cruel world and after I came into the picture it’s as if she allowed herself to go.

I don’t know what illness she had, what was her disease. Gino never told me and it wasn’t something he liked to talk about. His mom’s health constantly deteriorating was something that bothered him to the point that he believed that she was getting better instead of worsening, he ignored the signs that she was in fact dying. Ignored… More like refused to accept it so I made it my duty to go over to his house as much as I could. Stayed overnight when my mother allowed it which she didn’t mind the least. I just didn’t want Gino to be alone through that process, I knew it would hurt when she’d go and I was right to think so.

By the start of our second year of high school, actually it was the first month on the second week. On a Thursday evening, his grandparents had gone out for something I don’t remember exactly what for. It had started raining with a roaring thunder and flashing lightning. Gino had gone to see his mom in her room if she needed anything before we started our homework and I’ll never be able to forget that evening. No matter how hard I’d try to forget, that scene will always be trapped inside of my mind like it had happened just yesterday.   

Gino had called out to me, saying that there was something wrong with his mom so I bolted in the room in all haste and he had this horrified expression on his face and he was on the verge of tears but all I could hear was his mother’s rattled breathing and I knew at that moment what was happening.

When I entered the room her eyes were glassy and not long after she closed her eyes and honestly I don’t know if she was even aware that we were in the room before she closed them but after she did, her rattle breathing lasted not more than a few minutes and then all went quiet. By then Gino was in tears and I had to take him by force to get him out of the room and he broke down in my arms.

His grandparents arrived not long after during the time I was trying to calm Gino down in the living room. I didn’t have to say anything that they understood what had happened and tried to help to calm Gino down but to no avail and left him for me to handle while they handled to call an ambulance.

Gino cried and fought so much for me to let him go that he had completely exhausted himself in my arms and the next day bruises had formed where I had held him.

I knew his mom didn’t have long left to live, I knew her hours were counted just by looking at her but I never expected her death to be like that. It was calm but it was the rattling breathing that bothered me the most and after that it was all I could hear for a few days and it followed Gino for a while too as he’d constantly wake up in sweats from nightmares about his mom dying.  

After his mom’s passing, Gino was forced to leave his parents’ home and had to live with his grandparents instead since they were his only living relatives he had left and in a way I guess it was better this way since the constant memories of his mom dying just in the room next to his was a little too much for him to bare but after she died, for a while I thought Gino had too in a sense.

He had completely shut Risa and I out and instead threw himself deeper into his studies to the point I had to intervene to get him to stop… That had been our first fight since we had become friends, the first time I had to raise my voice at Gino to get him to listen to me and I promised myself that it be the last time.

“Mr. Kougami? You’re more quiet than usual.”

Akane’s voice snaps me back to reality as I look at her from the corner of my eye, she often looks at me and then back to the road as if trying to get something out of it. As if she’s trying to study me or something which is funny in a way.

“Just lost in thoughts…” I blurt out. “Just trying to remember faces.” I add but I keep ending up reminiscing about the old days of Gino and I just like some old man, I’m not getting anywhere with this.

“That’s over ten years ago, a lot has happened since then Mr. Kougami.” She states and yeah tell me about it. I wouldn’t be able to fit everything I’ve seen in the past two years in a single book but the answer is somewhere in there, I just have to remember it.

“Yeah that’s why I’ll get Shion to do a memory scoop-”

“Mr. Kougami! But that will mean you will have to relive the Specimen Case.” She suddenly cuts me off, not bothering to hide the panic in her voice with a worried expression on her face as she looks at me.

I give her a smile to reassure her that it was okay not that it did much to make her feel better though much to my amusement especially that she knows about that case in particular not that it surprises me that she has looked up the case and I have to say I’m impressed that she took the initiative to do some digging up herself.

“Anyway I highly doubt it that bastard will be in that part of my memory, he’s going to be earlier than that.” I tell her. “We’ll start from the moment I started high school, that’s when I met Gino and from there Shion will get a shot of every possible faces she can get. Risa said that Izaya was willing to cooperate so we’ll try our luck if he can choose one.” I further explain.

So far we don’t have much to go on and a memory scoop on myself is the only thing I can think of. If this fucker has been stalking Gino for years then I should have at least seen him a few times but I just never paid any attention before. It has to be someone who has never approached Gino to cause him harm, maybe someone that approached him in a friendly manner so I never blinked an eye about it.

“I guess we don’t have anything else to go with…” She mutters but I still get the feeling that she’s not exactly okay with the idea but still will go with it.

“Wait! Could Mr. Ginoza have been a victim of pedophilia by a teacher and he’s just continuing where it ended probably after graduation?” Akane suddenly blurts out and just the thought of a teacher approaching a student like that is just utterly disgusting but not like it never happened before in the past unfortunately.

Gino was a victim to a lot of things in the past but one that I’m certain about he was never a victim of sexual assault or any of the sort, well it never got to that but if I had never met and befriended Gino maybe it wouldn’t be the case today.

I’m not scared or ashamed to admit it that Gino has the looks. He’s good looking, he’s got these green eyes that just stand out and his black hair just makes them pop out even more. He’s tall and for a guy he’s small build and I’d even say a bit delicate and for sure it attracts attention and some unwanted eyes.

Almost a week after I had met him, he was confronted by that same little gang that had been beating him up the second day of school. When I got there, Gino was on the ground with his arms being held by one guy, his legs by another and he had been gaged to make sure he didn’t make any sounds. The one I had knocked out before was on top of him and from what I could see had managed to rip open Gino’s shirt and again my blood boiled and I exploded.

I made sure to give them one hell of a beating that day. Yeah I injured my hand in the process but it was sure as hell worth it and after that none dared to approach Gino again. No one ever touched him again and I made sure anyone who’d dare would know exactly what would happen to them if they crossed that line.

“Gino is a terrible liar. Risa and I would have known right away if there was something like that going on. ” I answer and it’s the truth.

Gino is just like a book. If you keep the cover closed then you will never know what’s in it, other than guess a bit what the story is about by simply looking at the cover but once that cover is opened you can easily read each page at ease well that’s Gino. Back then we were extremely close and I just learned to read him so well to the point it would anger him at how well I could predict what he’d do and what he’d say before he’d do it or say it.

After knowing him for so long I discovered how to see if he’s lying or not and I think he just does it automatically and doesn’t even realize that he does it but every time he’s about to lie he quickly shifts his eyes to his right as he starts talking and just as quickly he resumes eye contact. It’s an action that is barely noticeable but the more you talk with him you get to see it quite clearly.

Gino and I talked about practically everything in the past, from school work to our dreams for the future and to the things that just troubled and concerned us. When it came to romance he told me on several occasions that it didn’t interest him and he just didn’t know why he felt that way. I figured that it probably has something to with Pops being locked up when he was young and watching his mom slowly died but I never had the guts to tell him that.

To him romance or sex was just not something that he wanted to have; he just wasn’t curious about it or interested him at all. He told me just thinking about it grossed him out and again maybe the brief attack he experienced might have had something to do with it but when I asked him if that might have been the case he just answered that it wasn’t and he had felt that way before the incident had occurred.  

I did ask him about if he had ever been a victim of sexual abuse, if someone had forced him to do sexual acts with them but he just laughed it off saying if that had been the case his mom would have been a latent criminal too but he assured me that no such thing had ever happened in the past and I believed him.

“Already forty-eight hours since Mr. Ginoza disappeared; before long we’ll be saying it’s been a week… I want him back, I want him back here with us Mr. Kougami. I’m just scarred that I’ll fail. His life, it’s in my hands and if I can’t push the team towards the right path-”

“Why do you think Risa isn’t backing up from this case?” I ask cutting her off before continuing. “We all know that this case is too much for a rookie inspector to take on their own. Risa is here to substitute for Gino and we’re here to clear a path and you do what you have to do to get the job done. You take all of this and you learn from it, just as if Gino was here leading you into the case.” I add as I see the Nona tower coming into view, great the dog pound getting closer…

“I didn’t think about that.” She mumbles before looking at me to meet my gaze as the car pulls in into the parking lot.

“We have to focus on this memory scoop for now. Considering all the faces that needs to be scooped, I foresee a whole day just for that so in the meantime look for more cold case files and see if we can get a connection to the cases we already have.” I tell her as the car stops.

“Sounds like a plan.” She replies and finally a smile back on her face as we get out of the car but that smile vanishes just as quickly as it came. “Mr. Kougami what’s that over there?” She asks.

I look over my shoulder to see what Akane had seen and I can’t exactly tell what it is either. It looks like someone lying on the asphalt at the end of the parking lot. The dimly lit lot isn’t helping me to see to tell for sure but I don’t like this feeling I have in the back of my mind as I grab a flashlight and a stun baton.  

“Get in the car, lock the door and don’t come out until I tell you to.” I tell Akane and she doesn’t argue and does exactly as I say.

I turn on the flashlight, flashing it towards the unknown object in the distance, cautiously moving forward and as I start getting closer I can make out more the shape and it’s definitely a body and from what I can see there’s blood on the asphalt.

Looking around trying to see if there is anyone suspicious, anyone that could be hiding in waiting to attack but so far nothing as I get closer to the body, my eyes locked unto the head and it felt like someone had suddenly punched me in the guts.

I quickly crouch down to feel for a pulse and much to my relief that there is one, it’s faint but it’s there but I can’t deny the rage that is quickly building up inside of me as I take in deep breathes to try and keep my rage under control before looking over my shoulder to meet Akane’s gaze through the car window giving her a signal to come out before returning my attention to Risa’s motionless body. From the looks of it, she got her head smashed from behind and she poorly fell resulting in her hitting the front right side of her head.

Looks like Risa has been lying here for a while and my guesses is that she never saw it coming and was probably attacked when her shift ended. By her body position I’d say that she was walking towards her car but never made it on time meaning someone was here watching and waiting for her to come out.

Without a doubt it’s him, it’s the doing of that sick son of a bitch! He’s fucking playing with us and he knows we have nothing and he’s fucking toying with us. We have a major problem on our hands now… Shit.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rape starts here.

** \- Chapter 9 - **

**Ginoza**

Ow… My head…

The intense pounding in my head is the first thing that greets me as I regain consciousness. My vision is a bit blurry when I opened my eyes but they quickly adjust this time when compared to earlier but the lack of lighting is definitely helping-.

A sudden dread takes over my core as I feel my stomach churn and my heart skipped a beat when I realized that I’m now lying on a soft mattress and that I’m no longer on that cod hard table and my wrists are no longer being restraint by the thick leather straps but never the less they are still wrapped in bandages and I can still feel a light throbbing from the cuts I had caused myself when I had tried to get out of my restraints earlier.

With a sudden freedom in the strange sense, I can’t help but feel an ever growing anxiety within me and it only keeps getting bigger and bigger by the passing seconds. I know for me this can’t be good and I should try to flee for my life and yet I don’t dare to move a muscle, not that I could do so even if I wanted to.

My body isn’t listening to my mind; it doesn’t want to move no matter how many times I keep telling myself that I should I just can’t. I’m completely frozen in place and I have to take in deep breaths to help calm myself down but even doing that is extremely difficult right now while my mind keeps racing in my head.

From what I can see by only shifting my eyes to look around as much as I can without moving, I’m no longer in the same room as before and only that alone is enough to make me feel even more uneasy as the old fears from earlier quickly starts to creep up on me again.

The darken room doesn’t help to make me feel any better but after a few minutes I can finally move my limbs. The strength in my arms have somehow returned as I slowly dare lift myself unto my knees as I shake my head in hopes of fully waking myself up but it did little good. The only thing I got was the shock of realizing that I’m no longer wearing anything anymore when suddenly I get shoved back down hard unto my stomach.

I try to force myself to get up again but every time I try I just get more pressure shoved onto my back by a large warm hand and I feel another starting to touch my inner thigh sending shivers down my spine.  

“Every part of your body Nobuchika is as soft as a baby’s.”

Panic suddenly took over my body as I tried frantically to get away, to turn around, to crawl out of his grasp but to no avail I just couldn’t fight him no matter how hard I tried and the more I struggled he just added more of his weight onto my back until I just couldn’t move anymore.

His hand slowly trails from my thigh to my lower back all the way up to my shoulder. Applying pressure while the hand pressing in the middle of my back trails to my other shoulder as he shifts his body to cover mine as he applied more pressure on my shoulders making me sink a bit further into the mattress.

No, I don’t want this. I know what’s happening, what he’ll do to me as I feel my eyes starting to burn and all I can do is nothing as I’m forced to lie still. I can’t stop him and that’s the most frightening part and yet somehow in any minute Kougami will show up and stop him, he’ll beat him up like he always does and everything will finally be over but I know he won’t.

I feel his chest pressing against my back, his legs wrapped around mine to prevent me from kicking out of his hold and his breath onto my neck followed by a sudden sharp pain. The same as before and I know that he’s biting me again but this time the pain is more intense as I feel something warm drip down my shoulder. It has to be blood, my blood mixed with his disgusting saliva.

His tongue sends more shivers down my spine and every touch he does just wants to make my skin crawl.

I want him off me; I want him to stop touching me! I want him to stop, to just get off me and to stop but no matter how I keep struggling under his weight, I can’t escape nor does he stop. Instead it fuels him to continue more and more.

I think my mind is going crazy, nothing is properly function and everything is spinning out of control as I try to scream but I can’t find my voice to do so. To scream for him to get off me, to stop but I can’t. All that comes out of my mouth are only pathetic and embarrassing whimpers.

“Let me hear more of that sweet voice of yours.” He whispers into my ear, his breath sticking to my skin as he presses a solid hand unto my back and then I feel a sudden rush of intense pain throughout my body as if I was being torn in two, as if I’m being strangled the breath out of me.

His hands quickly shift places from my back to my hips as his fingers dig into my skin causing further pain as he starts thrusting into me without any mercy sending more waves of jolting pain by the second with each thrust.

“You’re so tight Nobuchika, I can barely fit.” He states and I can’t help but feel like he’s mocking me, making fun of what he’s doing to me.

Pain, I can’t bare this pain anymore! It’s unbearable! I want him to stop but he doesn’t and instead he just continues to thrust even harder causing even more pain as I feel warm liquid starting to drip down my thighs and I can’t hold in my screams anymore.

I didn’t want to give in to his satisfaction, I didn’t want him to hear me in pain but I can’t take it anymore, I just can’t do it and all I can do is scream in pain as tears start rolling down my cheeks begging him to stop. Begging him to let me go but he doesn’t answer and instead for an answer I received his disgusting moaning as he intensifies his thrusts sending more waves of pain throughout my body.

I bury my face in the mattress, trying to silence my cries when I feel a hand grasp at my neck pulling me backwards forcing my body to stand on my knees while his other hand presses against my chest as he continues to thrust and moan into my ear. Like he’s doing on purpose, that he wants me to hear him clearly to further add to his torments upon me.

“That’s right let me hear more as I imprint myself into your purity.” He pants into my ear before sucking on my neck and slowly going down to my shoulder taking another bite into my skin as I let out another cry.

It hurts; it hurts so bad, I can’t take it anymore. The more he thrusts into me with such force the jolting pains only keep on increasing and now constructing my airway with his hand I can barely breathe and yet for some reason my body is getting hotter and hotter. I feel like I’m suffocating inside.

He brutally forces me back face first into the mattress, holding my head sideways as he moans into my ear and his thrusts are becoming faster and harder until I feel something hot fill me inside.

He slows down his last thrusts before coming out, violently turning me around and although I want to fight him, to try and push him away from me I no longer have any strength in me to fight back right now. Breathing is already hard as it is and it’s all I seem to able to manage at the moment.

My body hurts, I never thought it was possible to hurt this much. Everything hurts and yet I feel hollow inside, I don’t know why. I’m angry but my fear overtakes the anger and I know I should fight but I can’t do it. Why? I keep asking myself the same question over and over again as more tears roll down my cheeks and yet I can’t move. I want to but I can’t, I’m afraid… This man scares me.

His dark eyes locked on to me, starring like he’s a predator and I’m the prey with a sick grin on his face before pressing his lips onto mine forcing his tongue into my mouth and all of a sudden my reaction is to try and push him away but to no avail as he simply just grabs my wrists and pining them next to my head before pulling away from my mouth, liking his lips with his eyes still locked on me.

“Thank you Nobuchika for giving me your virginity.” He tells me with another grin plastered on his face.

He releases my wrists as he hoists my legs up and waste little time entering me again, thrusting with even more force than before sending even more pain through my body all over again and my reaction was immediately to try and push at his stomach but that did little good to stop him and only made him chuckle at my pathetic attempt to get him off me. Instead he seemed to rather enjoy it that I had touched him to further disgust me out as he continued to torture me.

What he had said, thanking me for having given myself to him that I gave him my virtue… I didn’t give it; he took it against my own will. No matter how much I begged him to stopped, he didn’t stop. Just like he’s doing right now, it’s humiliating and with each thrust he does I hate myself for not being able to fight him; I hate myself for being so weak…

I feel so weak… It could be because of all the blood he took from me before and maybe from all the pain he’s caused me within the few minutes since I woke up but I can’t stop this man. I can’t stop him to protect myself and all I can do is shut my eyes and cry out in pain for what felt like forever until he finally came again and got off me.

I opened my eyes rather beaten as I watched him casually walk away to a wooden chair in the corner, taking some clothes off of it and then placing the fabric next to me before taking a seat on the chair and just watched me. His eyes starring with intensity and at that moment I could have sworn they looked like that of a hungry wolf stalking its prey.

“Put it on before I attack you again, you’re so irresistible.” He tells me as he licks his lips like an hungry beast and although I don’t have the energy to barely move I somehow managed to sit up and grab what he gave me which looks like an old patient’s robe in my shaking hands putting it on as fast as I could while he watched.

My trembling fingers gave me trouble to button up the robe but after a few minutes it was properly put on and although he’s still there, with this on it helps to make me feel less vulnerable and yet it’s just something that can be easily ripped off. This robe won’t protect me…

He gets up and walks slowly towards me and I can’t help but back away, my back against the cold wall but never able to look away from him as he reached for a chain that was hooked against the wall near the bed and cuffed my left ankle before grabbing the back of my head, pressing his lips against mine and with the other hand he squeezed onto my jaw to force me to open my mouth just so he could force his tongue into my mouth again.

I felt like I was going to be sick as he kept circling his around mine a few times before pulling away and with that he got dressed, got out from this cell closing the barred door behind him and left the room with a small black box, leaving me to my own in this darkness.

The pounding in my head mixes with my aching body and I’m left here starring at this godforsaken room which has clearly been prepped for a while now. A single room but divided with iron bars and on my side there has been an added bathroom for me to use but with no door to hide and on the other side of the bars is a bed, a dresser and a small night table.

Exactly how long have I been held captive here? I don’t know. It feels like I’ve lost track of time a long time ago. I’ve lost track of time when I was getting my blood taken out of me, I would lose conscious here and there and every time I’d wake I’d feel more and more disoriented and now I’m just lost and after what just happened I don’t know what I feel.

Dirty… I feel dirty…

I get up from the bed as I quickly try to run towards the bathroom and not a moment too soon as I start throwing up in the toilet and then a second time as I pant to regain my composure for a few seconds. When I no longer feel nauseous I flush the toilet and drag my feet back to the bed that is stained in fresh spots of blood on the white fitted sheet. Not far from the blood I can see some whitish substance and I have to stop thinking about it as my nausea tries to come back but nothing comes up.

I crawl to the corner of the bed, before burying my face into my knees as more tears come. Something I never wanted to do ever again and yet I can’t stop them from coming. All I want is to go home. I want Dime to wake me up in the morning like he always does and I want everything to be how it used to be.

His disgusting moaning is all I can hear, it’s stuck inside of my head; even though he’s no longer here I can still hear him and I can still feel him touching my skin.

No matter how hard I tried to struggle to free myself I just couldn’t, I’m just not strong enough… He’s bigger and stronger than I am, I just don’t stand a chance against him no matter what I do.

With that second bed in here I know he’ll sleep right there later when he’ll come back. He’ll be watching everything I’ll do and when I’ll sleep… He’s going to force himself on me again and again and just the thought of it scares me. I’m not sure I can bare it next time. I’d rather have my blood extracted from me than this, getting beaten up would still be better than having that man forcing himself on me.

It hurts, when he entered me it felt like my whole body wanted to rip apart. I hated every bit of it and yet… I… I came… I hated it all, it was so painful but my body didn’t react how I felt. I’m disgusted at myself for what my body did and all I want right now is dad. I’d give anything just to be able to talk to him. I need him…

I lie on my side, my back against the wall holding my knees closer to my stomach but it didn’t help to reduce the pain, only the coolness of the wall helps a little to sooth the pain on my back.

He seemed so proud to have violated me, proud that he was the first to do what he did to me… Does that really mean that I’m no longer pure? My grandparents were highly religious and after mom died, I had to live with them so I had to conform to their rules. Not that it was anything extreme but grandmother had made me vow that I would not lie with someone until I married. That the act itself was sacred and should only be shared by two individual until death… It wasn’t my fault, I know that but it doesn’t remove this pain.

How is my hue right now? So much for trying not to get it clouded for all those years… If it looks like how I feel it must be pretty bad. I can just imagine what other people would say, to hear about me. Senior inspector Nobuchika Ginoza having become a latent criminal just like his father, it was to be expected but no with my luck the dominator will go into eliminator mode and that will be it… At this rate death would be better than this but I don’t want to die for something so stupid.

It doesn’t take long for the exhaustion to start taking over; all I want to do is sleep and never wake up again. My eyes start to get heavy as I try to fight it but what’s the use and I just give in…


	10. Chapter 10

** \- Chapter 10 - **

**Kougami**

~ Day 3 ~

No one saw who attacked Risa yesterday; all they knew was that she had left after her shift was over. Apparently it was right after she had finished interrogating Izaya so when she called Akane it probably wasn’t too long after she hung up that she had been brutally attacked from behind and what is worst, no one knew she had been lying on the ground for who knows exactly how long until we found her and called for emergency aid.

After all I had told Akane, how she shouldn’t have to worry about not being good enough and that she could rely on Risa to help guide her through this came to absolute nothing… It all came crashing back into my face.

Losing Risa was a major blow for this investigation, there’s no denying that. I’m not sure if her partner is going to continue supporting us. After what happened I wouldn’t blame her if she suddenly pulled out but for Akane’s sake I hope she doesn’t. This case is already a tough one as it is, it’s definitely not a case for a single inspector to take on. It’s too wild and unpredictable, as long we don’t have a solid profile we’ll just keep going round in circles.

Seeing Risa like that yesterday, it made me sick down to my stomach and this morning when I stopped by to visit how she was doing before heading down to Shion’s lab to start the memory scoop. I barely recognized her lying on that bed. She had an I.V stuck in her arm and tubes in her nose and her mouth. Somehow she just didn’t look human with all those things sticking inside her and the monitors constantly beeping with her head bandaged up, not to mention how pale she seemed too. It was like looking at an empty shell.

From what Akane had managed to get from the doctor, because of the extent of Risa’s head injury. He felt that it was best to induce her into a coma until the inflammation and swelling to her brain reduces and to give her brain a chance to heal at its own pace.  

Honestly I don’t like the idea of doctors playing with people’s brains like it’s no big deal. Normally when someone falls into a coma, doctors try everything to wake that person up but then they turn around and say that this person must be placed into a coma for them to heal. It’s fucking ridiculous, I fucking hate it.

Anyway… I was thankful to Akane for inquiring the information about Risa’s condition for me, the doctor never would have told me a thing because of my status so I really appreciated it but this bastard is really starting to get on my last nerves.

 

First this bastard attacks Gino, kidnaps him from his own home and brought him to god knows where to be brutally tortured I’m certain of it and now he attacks Risa.

I know it’s that damn sick son of bitch that attacked her. I know it’s him and that’s something that’s be troubling me since last night. It can’t have been just a fucking coincidence that he went after her like that.

If it’s true that he’s been stalking Gino for a long time like we think he has then he knows who Risa is and what her position in the MWPSB is too.

He could have attacked Akane since she is Gino’s partner, she’s the only inspector for our division so eliminating Akane would prevent us from doing our job and yet he attacked Risa instead.

The only reason that I can think of for having attacked Risa is that he only wants division one in his sick and twisted game. Risa was a threat to his fun so he got her out of the way. Maybe it is best that division two completely backs down from this case otherwise the same thing will happen to inspector Shisui if she remains on this investigation.

It can’t be that Risa was on to something because we have shit. We have nothing unless… Unless he didn’t mean for us to find the blood paintings in the museum so soon and then have Izaya interrogated within the first two days in the investigation. If so then maybe he feels heated, the answer that we need is closer than what we think.

With division two we were able to speed up our search and thanks to them it allowed Akane and I to get Saiga’s thoughts about this fucker. If we would have been on our own, going all the way over there would have been impossible, we would have lost too much time, time that we just don’t have.

Maybe keeping division two into the loop wouldn’t be such a bad idea. To make that bastard believe that division two has backed out so he’ll have all of his attention and focus directly onto division one and not them allowing us to make our move without him even noticing before it’s too late. Yeah that might work if we play our cards right.  

“Alright Shinya. The memory scoop was a success; I was able to get a clear facial scoop of them all.” Shion states after a few minutes of silence while she continued typing.

Finally…

I knew it would have taken some time to do everything but I honestly didn’t think the memory scoop would have taken this long. Just processing each faces from my memory took a large amount of time but I didn’t think it would have taken just as long to digitize the pictures so hearing that it was a success is rather comforting and that I didn’t waste a whole day for nothing. 

“How many faces do we have?” I ask as I do a quick stretch with my arms over my head.

Shion switches computer screen by rolling on her chair, quickly hitting the keyboard making a bunch of pictures appear on the screen.

“I removed the duplicates and the women. In total we now have forty-three faces to go by.” She states. “Is there one in particular Shinya that stroke you as a possibility?”

“Yeah him. Professor Mako Fukushima.” I answer as I point him out. He’d be the logical choice too; he fits the age group professor Saiga gave us.

“What makes you think it’s this guy?” Shion asks.

“He thought Biology back when we were in high school but Gino and I never got him as our teacher. Right after Gino’s mother died, he entered the picture all of a sudden.” I explain.

It wasn’t after I started the memory scoop and reached that part of my memories that he hit me as odd. The first time I ever saw him interact with Gino was during his mother’s funeral.

He spoke to Gino but I don’t know what he was saying other that Gino never spoke to him back and only had a lost expression during the whole ceremony. Afterwards he’s often in my memories, always talking to Gino and I never really noticed before either and what I find odd is that Gino never told me anything about it.

“His profile says that he still teaches there.” Shion states as she quickly goes through his information. “I’ll send the information to Akane.” She adds as I start walking away.

“Are we still going to get Izaya to look at the pictures to see if he can identify anyone as the person who gave him the paintings?” She asks and I stop at the entrance.

“Yeah that was the original plan so we’ll stick with it for now.” I answer before leaving to the empty hall, dragging my feet in search for Akane.

Hopefully Izaya will be able to pick out one if it turns out that the professor isn’t our guy in the end and if not well going one by one is going to take a hell of a long time but we won’t have any choice if it comes down to that.

I check my terminal to see what time it is, officially my shift ended an hour ago but the memory scoop took an eternity and I haven’t heard anything from Akane when I was waiting for Shion to finish processing all the images so I hope she got something.

Day three is already almost over and I hate thinking about just how much time has passed since Gino’s disappearance. I don’t like knowing the fact that he’s alone with a guy who’s probably mentally deranged over the edge…

Stalkers, there are so many types of stalkers but the end result pretty much leads to the same conclusion. They are completely obsessed with the victim. For them the victim is pure perfection, they have no faults.

At first the stalker simply observes what the victim does, they don’t talk to them or approach them, they just watch and then as times passes they start getting more confident as they start getting closer and closer to the point they dare try to interact with the said victim and that’s when the problem starts.

The victim not wanting to be rude will give the stalker a smile or will enter his casual conversation. For the victim these actions are simply something normal, something a person does on a regular basis but for the stalker they take this as a sign of interest. They believe that their target loves them and will try to get closer to the point they end up in abducting the victim when they see they can’t get them willingly and then hell breaks loose and we end up with a dead body on our hands.

Ignoring the possibility of Fukushima being the culprit right now, I’m not even sure if Gino was ever approached by this guy, maybe he has but he’s so oblivious to other people’s feelings when those said feelings are directed to him-.

“Hey Kou!”

Kagari’s voice takes me out of my thoughts as I enter the lobby, taking a seat next to Akane.

“Find anything?” I ask.

“I think so. These files are unsolved but the kills were kind of brutal compared to the five other ones.” She says as she shows me the files.

The first victim had his guts removed. By the autopsy report, he was still alive when he was cut open which led him to bleed to death but no substance were found in his body so that means the poor guy felt everything until the moment he died at the age of seventeen years old.     

The second victim died two years after the first one at the age of nineteen, the guy had his wrists cut open and the cause of death was of a hemorrhagic shock due to the blood lost but the case was ruled as a possible suicide but just looking at this file, it was without a doubt an homicide.

The last victim was killed by getting his throat slashed open; cause of death was the same as the others. He was twenty-five years old, died six years after the second victim.

“I think they might be connected because of the cause of death. It was like the criminal was trying to find a way to extract the victim’s blood out.” Akane points out and yeah the cause of death does connect the murders but it’s not the only thing that connects them to this case. However it’s not something I’d expect Akane to have picked up.

“I’d say they are, look at the victim’s date of birth. If they had lived these victims would be the same age as Gino and I.” I state and my theory of a mentally deranged over the edge mad man is starting to be more and more accurate by the minute and that worries me, these deaths were not coincidental. 

“Did you know any of them Kougami?” She asks, giving me an interrogative expression.

“Yeah. They were part of the gang that used to bully Gino back in high school.” I reply as I close the files.

“Gino being bullied now that explains his complex-”

I shoot a glare towards Kagari and he quickly gets the messages but doesn’t try to hide his amusement to the thought of Gino having been victim of bullying. That’s Kagari for you, sometimes he fails to think before he speaks but that’s not something I want him to throw into Gino’s face later. Not ever.

“This man probably began killing by attacking people that caused Gino any harm in the past.” I theorize but chances are that’s exactly the case here, it’s something stalkers that become extremely obsessive will react violently towards those who would cause their prey any kinds of harm so if this bastard went after all the ones that attacked Gino, then it means that there should be two more victims somewhere.  

“He used them as a form of practice in order to discover what is signature would be and we did find out what it is. It’s the paintings of his victims painted with their own blood so we should be able to find more blood paintings somewhere.” I further explain before continuing. “When that was done he began experimenting with individuals similar to Gino, trying to perfect his technique but it wasn’t just about technique.”

Kagari scratches his head in irritation as he tries to figure out something on his own but is having some difficulties and hit a wall before turning his attention towards me. “Kou you make it sound like this guy was perfecting his method in order to drain blood but not kill.”

“Yeah and if that’s the case it means our situation just changed.” I state before getting up after Kagari and Akane.

Akane picks up the files on the table before telling us that she was leaving for the day and walked away, without a doubt trying to hide her discomfort of the whole thing. Kagari leaves for his quarters and I wander around the CID floor lost in thoughts.

Tomorrow we’ll go to my old high school and pick up Fukushima for interrogation and yet I don’t feel like we’ll be getting anywhere. Even though I want him to be our guy, I just have this damn feeling that it’s not him.

I have to admit that I don’t know much about the man but from the things that I do know, he was a respectable man. When he spoke, everyone listened and apparently he was an extremely devoted professor.

I wish Risa was conscious right now after all she was the one who had him as her Biology professor. Out of all of us she should have known him the best and from my memories she never had a single negative comment about the man.

With the new murder cases that we found that were left unsolved but shared obvious connections to this case, this bastard has been killing for nine years and that’s not knowing if there were any other victims before that which at this point I wouldn’t rule it out as a possibility.

Nine… He’s been murdering people for the last nine fucking years and he’s been getting away with every single one of them… So much for the Sybil system… You can be good to avoid street scanners but you can only avoid them just for so long. You can’t avoid them forever and yet this guy has no problem getting by without raising a single alarm.

The infirmary is quiet, I guess the nurses must be in the process of shift change so I just make my way straight to Risa’s room before I get turned away for whatever reason some nurses love to come up with because I’m an enforcer.

I’m greeted with the same image as this morning. Nothing has changed, not that I was expecting anything different… I just never thought I’d ever see Risa in this condition; it’s a little hard to swallow.

I drag my feet to her bedside but I can’t bring myself to touch her, somehow if I do I’ll only make her condition worst which is just plain stupid for me to think about. It’s not like I can do anything worse to her compared to what has already been done but damn that fucking bastard. What kind of a man attacks a woman?

Risa was unarmed and she was attacked from behind, she never saw it coming. Never had the time to react, or have the time to fear for her life… Only a damn coward would attack someone that way.

I didn’t think I’d ever come across another case that could fuck me up as much as the Specimen case did. I didn’t think it was possible but here it is and the more we dive in deeper into this case, I’m starting to see my colleagues drop like flies and the old fears from back then is coming back to me.

I promised myself that I would never allow that to happen again and now I’m finding it happening again. I need to figure out a plan soon before we get checked mate.

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

** \- Chapter 11 - **

**Akane**

~ Day 4 ~

Everything is going exactly as I had feared right from the start that I’d see the hours pass bit by bit and I’d be no closer to finding Mr. Ginoza. All that could go wrong in an investigation is happening and I just don’t know what it is that I should do.

I’m all alone now, inspector Aoyanagi can’t help me and honestly that’s what I did wrong right from the start of this investigation. I depended too much on another inspector when I should have had more confidence in myself and solemnly relied on my enforcers to get this job done.

As an inspector it is my job to push them and then follow towards whatever trail they may have found for me and chances are it would have been the right one.

First of all I have to utilize the memory scoop that Mr. Kougami put himself through yesterday; I can’t allow it to go to waste.  Thanks to it we have gained a list of possible suspects and right now Ms. Karanomori is going through each one of them to check when was the last time they had gotten a hue check.

We’ll then go by the ones whom haven’t had a hue check recently and go investigate one by one and go from there.

In all honesty I don’t like the idea of wasting so much time but at this point I don’t have much of a choice in the matter and I can’t wait around for inspector Aoyanagi to wake up from her coma to get information about who attacked her. Chances are that she probably did not even see who it was anyway and the thing is that she hasn’t shown any signs of recovering…

The doctor said that it was a bit too early to say but he believes that the swelling in her brain might not go away, that inspector Aoyanagi might not come back to us at all but I wasn’t able to decide if I should tell that to Mr. Kougami right now considering everything that’s happened…

I’ve given inspector Shisui the task to show the images to Mr. Hinamiya if he can identify the one who gave him the paintings while I go and see if I can have a word with professor Fukushima at Mr. Kougami’s old high school bringing Mr. Masaoka and Mr. Kougami along with me.

After the violent attack on inspector Aoyanagi, I know for a fact that this person isn’t frail and I’m certain that both Mr. Masaoka and Mr. Kougami must also believe that so for me it is crucial that they both see professor Fukushima first hand. That way they will be able to deduce if it is possible for such a man to have been able to injure inspector Aoyanagi like the culprit did.

The school ground is quiet and calm as we walk through the main entrance where we are greeted by an old woman seated behind a large desk at the reception.

“May I help you?” She asks with a soft smile.

A few months ago I would have been completely fooled by this woman’s smile; at first glance she seems so nice and gentle. I’m sure she must be but only towards people who have no history or connection with latent criminals that is and that’s just wrong.

“Yes. I am Akane Tsunemori.” I tell her as I present my badge. “I’m an inspector for the MWPSB and these are my colleagues. I demand to see professor Fukushima at once.” I add and her face suddenly becomes serious as she eyes Mr. Kougami and Mr. Masaoka proving what I had first assumed. That she despises latent criminals and sees them as nothing more than insects that must be quickly squashed.

For a few seconds she doesn’t move, as if she was processing everything I had just said before calling for my suspect to come to the reception immediately but she doesn’t say anything else as she returns to her usual work while ignoring us completely.

I could have asked to know where my suspect’s classroom was and gone to get him myself but I can’t do that to a man that may not even be guilty. If he turns out to be innocent of which I’m almost positive that he will be, tarnishing his reputation would be the last thing I’d want to do. From the information that I’ve gathered about this man, he is held in high regards in this school and is well respected by both the staff and students.

“Does it feel strange being back in your old school Mr. Kougami?” I ask after watching him a few minutes as he looks around catching his attention.

“No… Just brings back memories, that’s all…” He answers but doesn’t say anything else as he wanders around the entrance but I can tell he isn’t too fond of the receptionist here so there must have been some history between both of them that I’m not aware of. I wonder if it has anything to do with Mr. Ginoza, probably it does…

“Yes? Are these people here for me?”

I turn towards the old voice that is much softer than I had expected it to be, belonging to a short chubby old man whom is clearly suffering from osteoporosis just by quickly observing his body structure and his body movement is slow I’d also suggest that he might also be suffering from Rheumatoid Arthritis.

So this is professor Fukushima. He’s only a little taller than I am but with his curbed shoulders I’d assume that he was once taller but sickness is deteriorating his body. There is absolutely no way that this man could have attacked inspector Aoyanagi nor could have abducted Mr. Ginoza from his home and killed a full size dog with ease. It’s just not possible unless he’s a great actor which I highly doubt it.

“Ahhhh!” He softly exclaims as he walks towards us with a smile. “I remember you… Top of the class.” He adds as he extends his shaking hand to Mr. Kougami to take which he does in respect.

“Professor Fukushima, could it be possible to speak in private?” I ask taking his attention off Mr. Kougami. “I’m Akane Tsunemori, an inspector for the MWPSB and these are my colleagues and I need to ask for some information if you may?” I add as I show him my badge.

He nods and gives a sorrowful smile to Mr. Kougami, even though I didn’t say anything about their status to the older man, he knows what Mr. Kougami is… I guess so many had high expectations of him; if only professor Fukushima could know why it came to this. Why Mr. Kougami became an enforcer he’d understand or maybe he’d only feel even worse knowing that someone’s death sent Mr. Kougami off the edge.

We slowly follow the professor into an empty conference room and the more I watch this man walk, the more convince I am that he’s not the one. Actually watching him as he slowly sits down with a bit of difficulties; I can’t help but feel sad and sorry for him. We live in a society where such conditions shouldn’t be a problem anymore but it is. This man must be in great pain daily…

“How may I help you inspector?” He asks once we’ve taken a seat in front of him on the other side of the round table.

“I’m searching for a man who is wanted for several murders and I believe this man has frequented this school at some point.” I tell him.

“I see but I’m not certain as to how I may be of some help for your investigation inspector.” He states and I guess I kind of took the odd approach here.

This is the first time I’m interrogating someone by myself. Every time there is someone who is in need of interrogation Mr. Ginoza is the one to do it and he makes it look so easy.

“The recent victim to this murderer is Nobuchika Ginoza; I know you’ve had some involvement with him during our last two years of high school.” Mr. Kougami suddenly blurts out calmly catching the professor’s attention.

“Yes, I approached the lad after his mother’s death.” He admits, not even bothering to even deny it which is good meaning that he has nothing to hide. “He had some interest in flora and I thought it be good for him to participate in my green project. It would have been so sad for someone so young with such promise and potential to fall due to such a tragedy, the green project helped.” He adds and now that he’s mentioned the green project, I know of it.  

The green project is a student body activity to reintroduce vegetation and flora in the youth and make the barren lands of Japan to be flourished again. So far, this project has been a major success and is actually encouraged to continue as it has been proven to improve the hues of the students involved so yes it makes sense that he might have wanted Mr. Ginoza to join the project and maybe that’s what saved him back then.

“After profiling the unknown subject, we’ve discovered that this man has been stalking Nobuchika for several years, maybe more and we assume it could have started right in this school. By a teacher perhaps or a student, do you recall anything unusual that could lead us to this man?” Masaoka explains the situation and I’m actually quite relieved that I have both of them here with me right now.

By observing them even though they are enforcers I’ve learned a lot about this job from them and watching Mr. Masaoka and Mr. Kougami interrogate it gives me some idea on how to approach further interrogations in the future.

“Professor Fukushima, please anything that you can remember will be very helpful. Nobuchika Ginoza has been missing for ninety-six hours now, every minute counts.” I quickly add and it felt strange calling Mr. Ginoza by his full name, something I’d never have dared to do before and yet although it feels strange I’d like to be able to talk with him on more of a casual side and he the same…

“Such a tragedy…” Professor Fukushima voices out after a few seconds of silence, clearly sadden by what I’ve just told him as he continues. “Nobuchika had a hard time in this school; Shinya could vouch for this… Many professors here at the school and some former ones would simply turn a blind eye to the abuse.”

“But not you.” I happily add for him as he gives me a smile and a slight nod.

“The first year was the worse for Nobuchika, Shinya saw to it that it stopped and I turned the blind eye for his actions as I saw it to be justified.” He explains and I couldn’t help but give Mr. Kougami a smile and the mention on how protective he was of Ginoza back in their school days. “But there was another who also shielded Nobuchika from time to time.” He adds.

“I don’t recall anyone else ever standing up for Gino-”

“As much as you were with Nobuchika, you were not always and those who knew that small fraction of routine did their dirty work I’m afraid.” Professor Fukushima states cutting Kougami off before continuing. “Days that you were not in school were quite dangerous in the first year for Nobuchika. We were only two professors at the time that did not turn a blind eye to it.” He adds and I can’t help but give out a quick glance towards Kougami.

Although he’s remained poker face I know that Ginoza being secretly bullied behind his back was news to him so I take it that Ginoza didn’t tell Kougami everything like he thought he did which is bad because if Ginoza kept something like that secret then what else didn’t he say.

“Who was that?” Kougami quickly asks before I could.

Professor Fukushima looks at Kougami and then back to me as he thinks about what to say. “My apologies but I have forgotten his name but he was a tall man, almost seven feet tall and strongly build too…  Oh dear what was his name?”

“I don’t recall anyone like that.” Kougami blurts out and somehow it makes sense. It’s just like what Kougami had told me about how stalkers behave and if this man had only started stalking Ginoza during that time then he probably kept his distance or maybe he kept his distance because of Kougami and only approached Ginoza when he was alone.

“He was an art teacher and also the instructor for physical education but his art classes were not very famous within the students…” He states as he slightly shifts in his chair before continuing. “He’d often try to convince Nobuchika to learn how to defend himself and that he would teach him himself if need be but I talked Nobuchika out of it. Violence should not solve violence and Shinya alone was enough, Nobuchika is soft hearted. Him using violence would not have been favourable.” Professor Fukushima adds.

I think the man professor Fukushima just described to us may in fact be our man but even if he doesn’t have a name, he should be in the school’s database and I doubt it that there are many giants in Japan so he should be easy for Ms. Karanomori to find.

“Thank you professor, you were of great help to us. I believe that you have given us a great lead in our investigation.” I tell him as I get up, giving a light bow in gratitude.

“I will pray for Nobuchika’s safe return.” He says as he slowly gets up to me us out of the conference room.

* * *

Mr. Hinamiya was able to come early this morning when I left to question professor Fukushima and inspector Shisui took over pretty well and showed him the pictures of all the possible suspects but he wasn’t able to recognize any of them as the guy he had met and just like Kougami had voiced out afterwards that maybe the guy that gave the paintings to Mr. Hinamiya might have been a dud also which is pretty possible considering that he’s done it before so why not twice in a row.

When we return to the MWPSB from having interrogated professor Fukushima I had asked Ms. Karanomori to run a search through the staff personnel of Kougami’s old school but she found absolutely nothing. However, from what she could see, it looked like someone had hacked into the system and erased certain files and what a coincidence that the art and physical education teacher during the years Kougami and Ginoza were there is missing from the database.

Every time we get a momentum this man has already beaten us to the chasse and again we are stuck with nothing.

Professor Fukushima said that if he can remember the name of his former colleague, he would contact me immediately but still, it’s again more waiting that we just can’t afford right now.

“Is there really nothing we can do? I mean there must be something?” Kagari asks and as much as I appreciate his enthusiasm right now, there really isn’t anything we can go on. All we can do is wait; otherwise we’ll just be going in circles again.

I look at Kougami; he’s been too quiet ever since we came back from visiting professor Saiga. Okay he’s never been the heavy talker but he’s never been this quiet before. Even Masaoka hasn’t spoken much since the beginning of this case either; I understand that both are worried about Ginoza but staying quiet in their own thoughts isn’t helping. Both my top enforcers are physically here but not mentally and I need their wisdom badly for this case.

“Professor Saiga has never been wrong when it comes to profiling a criminal but he didn’t have much to work with either…” Kougami says, his chin lying on his fists, breaking his silence since he interrogated professor Fukushima this morning.  

“Mr. Masaoka?” I look at him as I spoke his name. “What do you think?”

“What I think?” He asks while looking at everyone before continuing. “I think we’re dealing with two culprits not just one.”

“What? Seriously?” I blurt out.

I’m not so sure about that since wouldn’t it be easier to catch two criminals instead of just one? One of them is bound to make a slip up and expose the other which has not been the case here yet and why even use Izaya to sell his paintings in the first place if he has a partner?

Another thing if this man is as sick as Kougami believes him to be and he wants Ginoza all to himself then there is no way he’d have a partner. He wouldn’t want to share his prize with anyone else but himself and just thinking about it just creeps me out at how sick and twisted a human being can be.

“No matter how you slice it little missy, it’s impossible for a single man to abduct his victims without leaving some sort of trace behind.” Masaoka states and I guess he has a point.

All the victims we’ve found so far. They all disappeared without a single trace; no one hears anything or even notices that something happened in the area. The victims were either last seen leaving from work or leaving from their home to go to work.

Ginoza is the first who actually gets abducted right into his own home so why the sudden change in motive? Why couldn’t the culprit abduct Ginoza when leaving the bureau or coming in to work unless he had reasons not to…?

“I’m with pops on this one.” Kougami voices out as he stretches his arms over his head.

“Yeah but why use Izaya if he has a partner?” I ask the rather obvious question from the look Kougami just gave me.

“Probably because his partner is incompetent without him. We are dealing with two criminals but one thing is for sure one of them is the dominant which is safe to assume that he’s probably older too and the other is the submissive one and does everything the other tells him to. Chances are he’s afraid of the older one.” Mr. Masaoka answers my question as he gets up to get a can from the vending machine and comes back to his seat.

“Now that you mentioned it, it suddenly makes sense.” Kagari says as he quickly grabs a sheet of paper and starts drawing something and then I realize that it’s the layouts of Ginoza’s home he’s drawing up.

“We found Dime in the kitchen here and we know that Gino’s bedroom is right at the other end of the condo here.” He explains as he circles the two locations before proceeding. “One took care of the dog while the other grabbed Gino while he was sleeping. We also know that Dime’s neck was fractured, the stabs must have been done afterwards so that freak could write that fucked up message in blood.”

If the partner is mentally incompetent could it be maybe that he never intended on killing Dime to begin with and he simply hugged the animal too hard? If so it’s not uncommon for animals to behave more passive towards handicapped individual so that would explain why Dime did not attack and before the animal knew what was happening it was too late.

“If Ginoza was sleeping when he was attacked, that would eliminate any signs of a possible struggle. Professor Saiga did mention that he believes the unknown subject to have knowledge in pharmaceutical so we can assume that a drug with anesthesia properties was used on Ginoza.” Ms. Kunizuka states and it makes sense.

If a drug was administered onto Ginoza when he was sleeping, by the time he woke up in panic it was already too late as the drug had already taken its effect so I can assume that the drug used on him might have been chloroform.

“Good you’re all here!”

I look over my shoulder to see inspector Shisui coming this way with a box wrapped in brown paper. She doesn’t say anything as she places the box right in the middle of the table.

“What’s that?” Kagari asks as he inspects the package.

“I don’t know but its address to division one.” She says before turning away as we stare at the box, ignoring inspector Shisui walking away.

I’m starting to have a bad feeling in my guts as I stare at the box as no one is moving and I guess were all feeling the exact same way. We’re all just looking at the box as to who will have the guts to open it first.

Kougami is the one that gets up and grabs the package. Wasting little time ripping the brown paper off the box and opens it in all haste.

I stand up to look what is in the box when Kougami just stands there starring at the content. What I see in the box wasn’t at all what I was expecting, without a doubt it’s just like all the others we found already, leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

Ginoza’s portrait painted in blood… I slowly take it into my hands trying to control them from shaking but very poorly. I just can’t believe it, so what does this mean? Does it mean that Ginoza is dead? No this just can’t be…

“Kou what is that?” Kagari’s question snaps me back to reality as I look up at Mr. Kougami holding a small disc in his hands.

“We should bring it to Shion.” Ms. Kunizuka states and no one argues as we all get up and I place the canvas back inside the box to bring it with the other evidence that we have in the lab.

I don’t get what is the motive of this man. All current evidence shows that his real target had always been Ginoza and all the previous victims were just practice and also we recently found out that this criminal has been killing people that had previously attacked Ginoza in the past.

Everything shows that this criminal was a long time stalker and admirer of Ginoza but now with this painting, what does it mean and why send it directly to us? He didn’t even bother to sell it like he did with the others, so why?  

We arrive at Ms. Karanomori and quickly explain the current situation as we show her the blood painting and all she does is shake her head in disbelief as she takes the disc Kougami gave her and inserts it into her computer, waiting for a few seconds before opening the file to inspect its content.

“It seems it’s just an audio recording.” She tells us.

“Play it.” Kougami orders and I can sense malice in his tone as he spoke.

Ms. Karanomori starts the recording as she raises the volume a little before the track starts playing. The voice that comes out of the speakers is without a doubt Ginoza’s but it’s the sounds that he’s making that sends chills down my spine. The screams and cries of pain are almost unbearable to hear as Masaoka walks out after listening to the track for a few seconds.

Ms. Karanomori stops the track and turns around to look back at us a bit shaken. “The track last an hour and a half.” She says nervously.

Kougami walks away and I quickly follow him out the lab and into the hall. I honestly have no idea what his intentions are right now, he doesn’t say anything but I know he’s fuming with rage.

As we walk we find Masaoka sitting on the couch in the lobby, his head resting in his hands. I can’t even start to imagine what’s going through his head right now. I wish I could say something but there’s nothing that I can say and it’s so frustrating.

“Pops…” Kougami says as he walks up to Masaoka, crouching in front of him to meet his gaze.

I can slightly hear that Kougami is telling him something but I can’t understand what he’s saying exactly but it doesn’t take long for Masaoka to burst into tears and that really hurts. Seeing him break down like that is heart breaking. We’re doing everything we can and it’s still not good enough. 

With a bit of hesitation I leave Masaoka to Kougami and go back to see Ms. Karanomori only to get that audio blast into my ears again

“How’s old man Masaoka?” Kagari asks as Ms. Karanomori pauses the track.

“Not good.” I answer back as I take a seat on the couch next to Ms. Kunizuka.

“That would be any father hearing his kid getting brutally tortured on a track and that’s not knowing if he’s dead.” Kagari says followed by Ms. Kunizuka slapping him in the back of his head.

What do I do? Chances are that whoever delivered the package was just some random individual that the criminal chose just like he did with Izaya. If we pursue to find this person then we are doing exactly what he wants, to him this is all just a game.

He chooses random people to deliver his signatures or maybe they are not so much as random. He knows a lot about his victims before he attacks them and we know that he knows Ginoza pretty well too.

He was probably aware that Ginoza’s security system was lagging or maybe he was the one who messed with it. Actually it wouldn’t surprise me if he did since I know now that he is capable of deleting information in a school’s database.

He knew that we would find Izaya suspicious so he used him as a form of leverage and I’m starting to wonder if this man had a hand in the accident that caused the life of Izaya’s wife and daughter just to make him even more suspicious and if my assumptions are accurate. It’s safe to assume that he’s put a lot of time and thought into pulling this kidnapping off.

On the audio I can’t tell exactly what was actually happening only that Ginoza was in a lot of pain but I have some sort of idea what it is and I just hope that I’m wrong.

“Ms. Karanomori can you find all mentally handicapped individuals that lives in Japan?” I ask when the idea came into my mind and maybe the answer was just as simple as that…

“Yeah I can run something.” She states as she hits a few keys. “By the law it is required to have anyone who has a mental handicapped to be listed from birth into the Sybil system.” She adds not long after a long list of individuals pop up and I can’t believe just how many people are mentally handicapped in this country.

“Can you filter anyone who is over six feet tall?” I inquire and without a word Ms. Karanomori hits a few more keys and within a few seconds only one person remained in the database, Hideki Yoshida.

Ms. Karanomori opens the man’s file. He’s twenty eight years old and he graduated from a special program of the same high school and exact same year as Ginoza and Kougami and this man is huge. Measuring at six feet tall and five inches and weighting at a two hundred and forty-eight pounds. This man is a giant.

“Apparently he has an older brother who is ten years older than he is. His name is Seiho Yoshida with an age of thirty eight. He’s no small man either with a height of six, eight and weighting at a two hundred and fifty seven pounds.” Ms. Karanomori tells us and I can’t help but smile, finally that’s our monster.

“Where is Seiho?” I ask.

“Says that he lives with his parents, same as his brother and listen to this. Seiho Yoshida was a physical education and arts teacher in Ginoza and Shinya’s old high school.” She states much to my satisfaction as she continues. “His father was a pharmacist before he retired years ago and mother was an artist.”

“Where does he work now?” Ms. Kunizuka asks.

“No idea. Looks like he’s been changing jobs constantly within the last few years; the longest job he’s had was three years and you guessed it, it was during Ginoza’s years in high school.” Ms. Karanomori adds.

Without a doubt that’s our man I’m certain of it, but I’ll have inspector Shisui bring a photo of this man to professor Fukushima and have him confirmed that he is indeed our man but I’m convinced that he is.   

“What was the point of sending us that audio? That’s what I don’t get-.”

“He wants us to know that he’s in total control but he also wants to confuse and anger us so we make a mistake.”

Masaoka’s voice took me by surprise; his expression is stern and hard. Like a wild beast that just woke up from a long slumber and is just anxious to taste blood.


	12. Chapter 12

** \- Chapter 12 - **

** Ginoza **

“Come stand here…” Kou says as he drags me to the center of his room before positioning himself behind me.

“If someone grabs you from behind, remember to use your elbow to hit him in the ribs like this.” He explains as he guides my elbow behind towards his ribs, where it would have hit if I had actually tried to hit him.

Then he quickly moves around to stand in front of me before continuing his explanation. “And if someone lounges at you, use his momentum to give him a knee in the guts. Most of the time the best blows is not with your fists…”

* * *

… It was just a dream, how ironic that I can’t even use what Kougami have thought me over and over again. I can’t even use it to save myself how pathetic…

Kougami thought me how to fight but I was always terrible at it, I don’t know I guess in the back of my mind I don’t want to hurt the other person. Fighting was never something that interested me to begin with, not like using violence will ever stop other violence anyway but just amplify it…

But… It always solved all of Kou’s problems, no matter what obstacle he came upon he could beat it… But, he’s not like most people anyway so I guess I really shouldn’t compare myself with him…

I wasn’t wrong before that he’d come back, that he’d do it again… Every time he leaves, every time he arrives he forces himself on me and no matter how much I fight, I just can’t win and it’s to a point that I’m even wondering what’s the point of even trying anymore.

When he came to take me the second time, I did everything I could think of to free myself. I pushed, clawed and tried to hit him but to no avail. The last thing that crossed my mind had been to bite him and that resulted in getting slapped in the face. The impact left me a bit groggy and he took advantage of that to disrobe me and violated me over and over until he became tired and retired to his own bed until he woke up a few hours later and then he came for more.

This morning what woke me up was pain…

He’s got me so drained and tired that I didn’t even hear him open the cell door. What woke me was the pain of his heavy thrusting and like before he didn’t care if I was in pain or not. He kept going, kept on thrusting into me. Completely ignoring my pleas for him to stop and he continued for I don’t know how long it lasted but he didn’t stopped until he was fully satisfied and had his fill before he got off me, got dressed and left to who knows where.

My whole body is aching, there isn’t an inch where it doesn’t hurt and my neck is so sore from all the times he’s bitten me, by now it must look pretty damn awful. It doesn’t matter where I look on my body all I see are dark bruises on my skin. Even when I was getting beaten up back in school, I never looked this bad or felt so shitty…

What would Kougami do in my position…? Easy, he’d beat the shit out of this creep with no problem, he’d do whatever it takes to kick the living hell out of anyone who’d want to fight him but it works for him. When it comes to brute strength, Kougami has always been better than me but there has to be something I can come up with to help me escape…

I don’t want to be here when he gets back. I don’t want to hear his disgusting moans, his panting, and his breath on my skin or feel his hands on me again but this silence and this constant anxiety is really starting to drive me crazy or maybe I already am.

How can I remain calm in this kind of situation when I know what will come eventually? I can’t think properly with this exhaustion and this pain that fills my body. I’m tired and hungry; he only gives me the strict necessity so I don’t die. He’s doing on purpose to keep me as weak as possible.

He doesn’t want me to put up a fight, even if I wanted to I don’t have the strength to fight and the more I think about it maybe I really should give up…

The sound of the door opening takes me out of my thoughts and there he is as he opens the door widely before turning away and coming back a few seconds later with a few things that I really do not want near me.

I don’t move from the corner I’ve confined myself in, my knees tightly pressed against my chest and my arms clutching around my legs for dear life as I watch him lay down what he brought with him on his bed, lining them up all neatly before taking a syringe sticking it inside a bottle to suck up a clear liquid.

He pulls the needle out of the bottle, holding the syringe with the needle facing upwards flicking the needle as a bit of liquid comes out before setting it back on the bed. Turning his attention to pick up something else with a bottle of water before making his way to the cell, opening the cell door that I see exactly what he’s holding. Three pills individually wrapped within thin aluminium.

I’m starting to have trouble breathing from the ever growing anxiety as I hold on to my legs even tighter closer to my chest as my eyes follow his every movements.

I want to run but this damn chain won’t let me and I can’t fight him. If I try I’ll just end up getting more pain inflicted upon me by him.

“Be a good boy Nobuchika and take these.” He tells me as he takes out the pills from the aluminium casing, holding out his hand for me to take them.

“No…” I muttered the single word, almost barely understandable.

I don’t want it, whatever it is I don’t want it and from the sudden change in his expression I know I’m going to pay for not doing was I was told as he quickly grabs my jaw roughly. Forcing my mouth to open just enough to shove the pills inside my mouth and then presses the bottle of water to my lips as the water goes into my mouth and he forces me to swallow but he doesn’t let go as he forces me to look up to meet his gaze.

“Nobuchika, you must behave and be a good boy for me. Don’t you agree?” He says in a calm tone and yet there’s malice in it and all I can do is to try and swallow the lump in my throat before he presses his lips onto mine.

He releases his hold of my jaw and then turns his attention onto my arms, forcing them away from my legs and I can’t hold back the tears knowing too well what is coming up.

“No, that’s not behaving accordingly.” He tells me as he pulls me away from the wall, forcing me onto my knees before wiping away the tears from my cheeks.

“You will behave.” He adds before shifting his hands from my face to my shoulders and then to my chest as he starts unbuttoning the robe and I can’t help it as the tears keep coming down and I hear his breathing change in slight frustration to my lack of obedience, knowing full well that I’ll pay for it later.

He moves back his hands to my shoulders once he’s done unbuttoning my robe, guiding the fabric down my arms; wasting little time discarding the robe aside before returning his hands back to my bare shoulders as he starts sucking on my neck while his hands shift to my chest and then all the way down to my stomach and my reflex was to cover my part with my hand.

“No…” He says as he pulls my hands away before taking my member into his hand and starts stroking slowly and without thinking I reach for his hand, to get him to let go when I hear him chuckle at my gesture as he stops and pushes me down onto the mattress, his breath onto my neck as he whispered into my ear. “Aren’t we a naughty boy and naughty boys must be punished”

Panic is slowly starting to consume my mind as I hear him undoing his belt and I just want to scream but I can’t find my voice when I feel that sharp pain again, that sensation as if my whole body is being ripped in two as he starts moaning and panting into my ear with each thrust.

His hard thrusts sends waves of pain throughout my body and each one just continues to be stronger and stronger and yet my body feels strange as I feel it becoming hotter and I can’t help but cry out much to his enjoyment when he decides to slow down his pace for a few seconds and then picks back his speed up until I feel him come inside me.

He then forces me to turn my head in his direction to kiss me again as he pulls out but not before placing a kiss on my nape and I drop onto the mattress.

I hear him fumble with his pants, pulling them back up and adjusting his belt before walking away like everything he had just done was perfectly normal, that he hadn’t done anything wrong.

He takes the syringe in his fingers, quickly inspects it as if to make sure it was right before coming back to me and I quickly turn to my side trying to back away rather pathetically from him.

“Now be a good boy and give me your hand.” He demands with that same wicked smile on his face but all I can do is look at him and then at the syringe much to his annoyance as he adds. “You don’t want to be punished again do you Nobuchika?”

I swallow the heavy lump in my throat as I hesitantly lifted my right hand which he takes, pulling me closer to him. Carefully feeling for a vein before sticking the needle into my arm, slowly injecting the unknown substance into my body and once the syringe in empty he takes it out of my arm, presses his lips against mine and walks away back to his side of the room.

It doesn’t take long for my senses to start becoming a bit hazy, whatever he gave me is starting to take its effect bit by bit and yet even though I should be afraid and worried about what he just injected into me I just no longer care. Whatever he has in store for me, I won’t be enjoying it but he will and all I can do is beg and pray for death.


	13. Chapter 13

** \- Chapter 13 - **

** Seiho **

The dirty smell was unacceptable, to have such a beauty filthy should be a crime by itself alone and there was no way I’d let him sleep on a filthy bed once he was cleaned. The sheets needed to be replaced and ironed; they needed to be of the best of quality for my Nobuchika. I couldn’t have him lay into some third rate fabric, now that just wouldn’t do.

Now he is clean, even more beautiful than before. Of course doing so had not been an easy task to say the least while he lay sleeping in my arms ever so innocently. Oh, I had to control myself to not take him then, it was not an easy task but it was ever so worth the moment. To have my arms wrapped around his body against mine was ever so divine.

If only I did not have to use such vile trickery with my precious Nobuchika, having him awake as I washed his body would have been so much more exciting. To make love with water pouring on our naked bodies, his legs wrapped around my waist, his fingers in my hair would be pure bliss.

He is without a doubt rebellious and stubborn but he’ll come around soon enough. He’ll come to realise that all he needs is me, that he belongs here and then there will no longer be any need to be so rough. Right now he must learn and learn he will…

Even now he denies me, he denies his true feelings but I see what he truly desires. He loves every bit of what I give him even if he denies it, he enjoys it when I touch him and I know deep down he wants me. The thing is, he just hasn’t realized it yet but he will, I will help him realize and to let his true feelings out.

Once I have brought out Nobuchika’s true feelings he’ll never wish to leave nor would he ever think of being apart from me. There will be nothing more important in his eyes than me.

To think until now my precious Nobuchika had remained uncorrupted, saving himself just for me.

The package should be in his hands in this very moment, now he knows that I got his deepest desire. Now, he will know that it was I that succeeded in corrupting Nobuchika and not him. Now he will know how much Nobuchika loved being touched by my touches, he would hear his voices that were made just for me and not him. He will know that every time I’d enter him, an orgasm would build deep within him. Now he knows that Nobuchika is mine, he’ll never be his.

Watching Nobuchika is always beautiful but what is ever better is when he starts waking up. His little movements he does with his arms, how his body shifts and the light sounds he does is enough to get me on.

In a few seconds he’ll open his eyes, he will look around for me and his eyes will tell me how much he craves for me to take him and as predicted, he does exactly that. His green eyes fixated on me as I approach him and he waits, waits for me to mount him and give him the pleasure that he craves.

I swiftly turn him around with much ease, raising his hips a bit before entering his ever so tight entrance as he lets out whimpers and much to my satisfaction he doesn’t try to move away. He’s learning, he’s learning ever so well that it excites me even more.

“Do you remember how you used to cry when we started Nobuchika? How hard it was for you to take all of me?” I ask him as I start moving inside of him slowly, savouring every thrust, savouring every whimpers and moans that he makes.

“Now you lift your hips to get me even more into you.” I tell him. Placing my hands onto his hips, slowly sliding upwards his back right to his shoulders and go back down to hold his hips to facilitate each thrusts before adding. “It took some work, but you finally figured out what life is all about.”

I slowly start to accelerate my thrust, pounding a little harder and quicker with each thrust and each is welcome by an exciting sound from Nobuchika. Before he would cover his sounds, try not to allow any lewd moans out and now he is starting to be true to himself. Giving himself more to me with each passing days but there is still work left to be done. I must make him forget, he must forget all. All he needs is me, only I should be of importance to him.

He’s so tight, it doesn’t take long before I reach my climax and I fill his inside. Adding a little more of myself into his being before pulling out as he drops motionless onto the mattress with heavy breaths and all that moves is his gorgeous eyes, always looking at me and I can’t help myself from stroking his soft damp hair between my fingers.

“A true man is, most of all a protector.” I tell him, always stroking his hair as his breathing slowly starts to return to normal. “He can be strict, ruthless, intense, and even aggressive but above all that, he is a loving and caring man who will always take care of his lover.” I add before grabbing the back of his neck, forcing him upwards to his knees.

“I may treat you sometimes, your safety and wellbeing are always my top priority. In return, you gladly give yourself to me Nobuchika.” I add before pulling his face closer to mine, pressing my lips onto his soft and warm ones as he parts his lips to give me access to deepen our kiss hungrily.

Nobuchika isn’t completely broken but he is without a doubt now mine.

* * *

** \- Chapter 13.5 - **

** Kougami **

~ Day 5 ~

There’s nothing I want more than to see that man turn into pink slush.

I listened to that audio recording over and over again last night and the more I listened the more the rage boiled up inside of me. Gino’s cries overshadowed most of the other sounds in the background but I was still able to manage to hear him by twerking with the audio.

That bastard! Before I let Sibyl judge him I’ll enjoy unleashing my rage on that fucker first, I’ll make him suffer for all the pain he’s given to Gino.   Once I’m done with him he’ll never be able to lay another finger on Gino, he’ll pay! Godamn it he’ll fucking pay!

I can’t even come to imagine how Gino must be feeling right now. He’s never been able to handle sexual matters easily, he didn’t deserve this! Any of this! I can’t even come to imagine a fragment on how he must be forced to endure this fucking bastard on him every day since his abduction.

“Kou, don’t do anything reckless.” Pops tells me, taking me out of my thoughts at the same time as I look up to meet his gaze.

If there’s one think he doesn’t need to tell me it’s that. We had a long talk about the current situation last night, I know what’s at stake here and that’s why we can’t fuck up.

I understand completely what we are facing against, he sent that package especially for us but I’d be more than willing to say that it was intended for either me or pops to hear. It was his way of attacking us directly and personally, probably hoping that we would get blinded by our rage and fuck up but no, we can’t permit ourselves to make that mistake. We can’t make any more mistakes anymore.

One thing is for sure he’s more than a sociopath, he’s a complete lunatic. He’s completely obsessed with Gino; he probably knows everything there is to know about him. He’s been killing everyone that has caused pain towards Gino in the past. Pops and I are no different; we did hurt him so we are most likely targets too. Only problem for that bastard was that he couldn’t reach us so he needed to find a way to lure us out and while he was at it why not abduct the person he wanted all along. Using his prize as a form to lure in his two final preys.

The only thing I’m still wondering is if that bastard was already stalking Gino way before he started high school. If he had already been watching Gino when he was just a kid and if so for a grown man to lust towards a child that is more than mentally deranged…

If he has been stalking Gino for that long, it must have seriously pissed him off when I entered the picture. Chances are that Seiho might have planned on approaching Gino at that time. By what professor Fukushima told us, Seiho had approached Gino to fight back, even offered to train him which professor Fukushima convinced Gino not to do and I couldn’t be more thankful at the old professor. If Gino had accepted the offer I’m afraid that the abuse could have started there and soon after that we would have gotten news that Gino would have disappeared without a trace probably.

Needless to say, I must have been a serious obstacle for him. In his head I must be the one that prevented Gino from noticing him. In his head I must be Gino’s world and that means I’m a threat that needs to be eliminated at all cost. He must think with me gone, he’ll have better control over Gino and maybe he’s right…

The paddy wagon comes to a halt followed by the large doors opening, letting the darkness get consumed by the light as we get up and walk out meeting Akane with her dominator already at hand. I pick up mine and walk up to her.

“Be prepared for anything in there.” I tell her.

“Yeah, let’s finish this.” She replies as confident as ever.

Division two head off to the back of the building while we go in from the front. He won’t have a single place he’ll be able to run off to, we’ll have him cornered like the fucking rat that he is. When you think about it, this guy used his younger brother who is mentally ill to help him abduct his victims who probably doesn’t even realize that he’s doing something wrong. He manipulates innocent people into doing his dirty work for him, he’s despicable.

I carefully glance at each faces as we pass by, making sure he doesn’t slip by until we meet with division two as they take the stairwell while we take the elevator up to the third floor.

“That guy is an idiot if he thinks we couldn’t find him.” Kagari voices out as he holds his dominator closer to his face before we get off the elevator and cautiously approach his apartment. I ask pops to cover me as everyone got out of my way as I kicked the door open. All is clear so far as Kagari and Kunizuka enters the apartment first, dominators ready to shoot if need be.  

“There’s nobody here.” Kunizuka calmly states.

Kagari slides his finger on the dining table and inspects the dust that sticked on his finger with disgust. “Hell doesn’t look like anyone’s been here in months or maybe even years. Look at all the dust.”

I should have known it would have been much too easy to find him. He always thinks a few steps ahead; he knew we would have checked the database for his location once we would have figured out who he was. Now exactly where did he go?

Pops’ voice catches my attention as he asks for the forensic drones to the room he’s in. Kunizuka doesn’t ask any questions and leaves to go get them and I go straight to pops and I’m welcomed by an unpleasant odor, can’t say this is a pretty sight either. Two bodies severely decomposed laid on the large bed, looks like they got their heads bashed by a heavy object while they were still sleeping. They never even knew what was going on…

“He killed his own parents in their sleep.” Pops states as he shakes his head in disbelief. Anyone willing to take the life of the people that brought you into this world is beyond mentally messed up but finding his parents killed by his lunatic doesn’t come much as a surprise.

“They were an obstacle to his goal. He eliminated the problem even if it meant murdering his own parents. ” I answer back.

“You raise your kids hoping for the best, you never expect them to turn on you this way.” Pops adds and I give a small pat on pops’ shoulder as I quickly look around the room, doesn’t look like anything has been stolen either. So his sole objective was simply to murder his two parents like they were nothing more than animals.

I leave this scene for pops to handle as I join Akane in the living room, reporting what we found in the parents’ bedroom but I encouraged her that she did not need to see the corps. The stench alone would be enough to make her sick. 

Division two started asking questions to the residence of the complex for any information about the Yoshidas. Again just like with all the other kills he does, no one heard a thing or even knew something had happened in the first place.

Shion ran a few checks here and there about the parents; it would seem that their pensions were taken out of their banking account every month. They didn’t have much to their name but what they did have had been paid without any delay each month. He took every step necessary to avoid raising suspicions that something had happened to his folks, it’s also safe to assume that his brother must be with him too but where exactly? If we could get that answer, that’s where we’ll find Gino and I’m afraid that time is running out. We have to find Gino soon or I fear for what will happen to his mental health.

“Once again we are thrown back at the start with nothing…”  Akane says with a bit of disappointment in her tone, can’t say that I blame her. I’m feeling the same way, the longer it takes us to find Gino the longer that bastard can have his way with him.

“Not exactly.” Pops answers as he joins us and adds. “He’s starting to slip, a little but still slipping.”

“What do you mean?” Akane asks with a confused expression.

“Right now he is hoping that we will go on a hunting frenzy. Kougami, me and including anyone who are close to Nobuchika are possible candidates to kill. We can’t just rush in and search blindly but he also was impatient into having Nobuchika in his grasp and that is his major error.” Pops explains and it makes sense.

Seiho feels himself secure, he already believes that he has won by having Gino in his grasp and in turn he starts acting carelessly. Yeah he’s still maybe a bit cautious but so far everything we’ve found on his are things that he’s prepared long ago, anything new won’t be as calculated but that also means that mentally Seiho is becoming a bit more unstable and that may be bad news for Gino.

“Chances are that he kidnapped Mr. Ginoza to get both of you out in the open.” Akane adds and yeah that’s the conclusion that pops and I came up with last night, but chances are that I’m the main target and pops is just an added bonus.

“Exactly and let’s assume in his head that we fear for Gino’s life which we done but anyway. Then that would make us anxious and most likely to go in hunting blindly making his kills much easier for him but that’s where he miss calculated when he sent that audio with that painting.” I say as I follow Akane out of the apartment as I continue. “He won’t kill Gino but he wants us to believe that’s what his intentions are but after twerking with the audio last night I managed to hear that bastard and no he won’t kill Gino that I’m sure of it. He’s obsessed with him; he’s nothing more than a prize to Seiho. He’s worked too hard to have Gino in his possession than to have him killed just like that and I’d be willing to bet that Seiho must also be giving drugs to help reduce Gino’s psycho-pass too.”

“How do we find him then? His slip ups are not big enough to give us any lead.” She asks. True, can’t argue with her on that one.

Considering that we got the painting within seventy two hours after Gino was abducted, I’ll assume that Gino got his blood extracted for about a day or two in between a few hours’ intervals. That would have given a day for Seiho to paint the portrait and time to dry. After hearing that audio, he no longer has any interest into extracting blood, just forcing sexual acts onto Gino. Who knows how many times that fucker forced himself on Gino and the thing is that before we can even get to him it will happen a few times again too and that just helps to boil the anger inside of me even more.

“It’s our turn to play games.” I blurt out and I continue. “Tell inspector Shisui to declare to the media that the unsolved murders have been solved with the killer responsible for the murders has been judged by the Sibyl system and has been taken care of. He wants the attention; he won’t stand for someone else having taken the credit for his kills.”

“Mr. Kougami but that will enrage Seiho and he might actually harm Mr. Ginoza for that!” Akane quickly exclaims in protest to the idea, not that I can blame her though. I hate thinking what he’ll do to Gino for that but maybe he won’t it’s a gamble I’m willing to take.

“Nothing he hasn’t done already so it won’t matter but it could be enough to make him slip big time.” I look at pops as I spoke, he doesn’t have to say anything for me to understand that he’s not too thrill about this gamble either. So far we don’t have anything else to go with; we have to gamble on this one. We’ve exhausted all other possibilities and nothing works, we don’t have any other choices.  

We run into Shisui in the hall and tell her of the current plan of action, not that she likes it any better but still goes along with it. So far all we’ve been doing is exactly what he wants us to do, we’ve been playing right into his hands in his little game for too long, now it’s our turn. By making Shisui make the announcement it already removes the pressure off division one, making it look as if division two is in charge of this case, something that he won’t be expecting.

He won’t only be angry that his works were credited by someone else but that if his goal is truly to kill pops or myself he will have to change his method because he’ll then be thinking that he’ll have to go through division two first.

Gino hold on just a bit longer, we’ll find you so just hold on…


	14. Chapter 14

** \- Chapter 14 - **

**Seiho**

Nobuchika is breaking, he’s breaking exactly how I had planned and he is finally starting to realize what he truly wants. Nobuchika is finally starting to realize just how much he wants me, how he loves every touches and most importantly he loves it when I’m in him. How our bodies become one in those moments.

The sex was the best we’ve had and it will only continue to be even better as time goes on. He no longer betrays his feeling, every bit of pleasurable moans, he lets them out. Every cry, every short breath is just so alluring. I love it; no I more than love it. I absolutely adore it and now all he needs to say is my name. To cry out my name in ecstatic pleasure, that’s what he needs to do.

I am content with how things have progressed here however as much of a great mood I was in, it did not take long for it to crumble.

Those damn dogs at the Ministry of Welfare! They can’t do their jobs properly, giving my kills, my work, my art to some low life and what do I get? Absolutely no recognition what so ever for what I’ve done. They even went as far as to removing Nobuchika’s division off the case.

No this won’t do! It won’t do at all!

Shinya Kougami must die, he needs to die. That’s the only way I will be able to assure that Nobuchika remains mine for eternity. I can’t have him think of that man, I should be the only person that he thinks of. He has to crave for me, he has to depend solemnly on me and no other!

As long Shinya Kougami remains alive there is always a slight possibility that he will remain in the back of Nobuchika’s mind and that’s not what I desire. Nobuchika must think of no other man, when he does think of a man it will be me and no other. I have to kill Shinya Kougami with my own two hands.

My original intentions had been simple, to capture Shinya Kougami and give him the most gruesome death possible. The cruelest and my Nobuchika would have helped me to do it. How painful would it have been for that dog to die by Nobuchika’s own hands? It would have been a delightful experience. I know that Nobuchika would do it, he would for me but is it too soon I wonder?

None the less, things were going much too smoothly on my end, I was bound to hit a snag in my plan but I won’t let that alt my plans. I’ll just have to modify it to fit the current situation after all I have nothing to worry about. I have the most important aspect of my plan, I have Nobuchika right here with me and he’s all mine. Those damn dogs at the Ministry of Welfare must take me for a god damn fool and that very fact enrages me. Giving the credit to some unknown individual without Nobuchika in their grasp…

They can fool the low lives in this city, the mindless sheeps that inhabits this country but they can’t fool me. They think they can manipulate me, they think that I’ll go on a raging spree. Only a lunatic would do such a thing. Why would I rage out when I have my prize here with me? But they shouldn’t have angered me; they shouldn’t have played with my nerves. I never lose and I always win and in this game I win by transforming Nobuchika in a way that he won’t be able to live without me. With me gone, Nobuchika will surely die.

Today, Nobuchika is even more beautiful and he’ll be even more captivating once those bruises will heal and then his flawless skin will show again but I won’t have to damage it anymore for I won’t have to. Nobuchika is becoming mine, he’s already mine. His eyes locked on me, hungry, wanting me already and I just can’t say no to his need.

He’s breaking, I’ve been watching him very closely since yesterday and he no longer feels the urge to flee. I left the cell door open and not once has he tried to free himself from the cuff on his ankle. He no longer wishes to leave, he’s mine. He’s without a doubt mine.

I take off my cloths, eyeing Nobuchika as I do so just to observe his movements, studying his reaction and I must say that I’m very satisfied. He waits patiently for me, his eyes no longer filled with a false fear as I walk up to him. He looks up at me from his position as I extend my hand for him to take which he does. Not instantly like I had hoped for but still fast enough and I pull him forward, forcing him on his knees.

“No.” The tone was low as he spoke the single word before turning to face me.

I force him to turn back onto his knees and yet again he defies me, refusing to allow me to take him. Was I wrong and now he’s becoming problematic again? Can he sense what is going on in the outside world? Can he sense that things have suddenly changed?

I can feel my anger boiling even more, I was already not in a pleasant mood and now Nobuchika is being defiant once again which does not satisfy my desire. He was being so obedient yesterday, how could it not last? I will break him!

I grab his wrists, squeeze onto them causing his face to wince but he doesn’t try to pull away from me nor try to fight out of my grasp as he looks at me with those gorgeous green eyes of his.  

“I would look upon your face…” He softly breaks the silence, peaking my curiosity as I release his wrists.

Perhaps I simply jumped to conclusions; those damn dogs did rile me up a bit too much. I almost lost my cool of my precious Nobuchika just there. I misunderstood his intentions.

Nobuchika gently places his hands on my shoulders, gently shifts my body and I allow myself to lie on my back as he straddles my hips. Cautiously placing his hands on my stomach as he slowly lowers himself onto my hard on and lets out a soft gasp at being penetrated.

He doesn’t move for a few seconds and then slowly starts to rock his hips back and forth gently as I place my hands on his hips, feeling the soft movements followed by soft gasps with each gentle thrusts that he makes.

I unbutton his robe, revealing his soft skin with a good view as I imagine how beautiful he’ll look like once he no longer has any bruises on his body. How each gentle thrust is filling up my own body with pleasure and I can see how much he is enjoying this just as much as I am. So this is how he likes it, this soft and gentle movement fits well with his delicate features.

I slid the fabric of his robe down his arms, tossing it aside before lifting myself to face Nobuchika making him stop moving as he wraps his arms around my neck and nervously presses his lips onto mine and yet allowing me to take charge. That’s what he wants, he doesn’t want to lead, he knows who is in charge, he knows not to bite the hand that feeds him and instead showed me what his own body desired.

I can’t deny his feelings; I cannot ignore them now that he is finally opening up to me, finally giving all of himself to me and only me. He is mine and no other, it is most vital that I give him what he craves in order to sink in my hold completely.

I deepen the kiss as I pushed him down with my weight, slowly continuing the soft thrusts that he had been doing. My reward was his soft moans and gasp of pleasure that followed with each thrust that I would do. He’s more responsive to this gentle and soft approach than a quicker and harder thrust and I must admit that I’m enjoying every bit of it.

Every moan, every gasp is just a pleasurable melody to my ears. No one has ever heard them, no one knows of the sounds that Nobuchika can make. No one has seen this face, seen those eyes of his full of lust. Seen this body consumed by pleasure and all of this is caused by none other than myself. Not Shinya Kougami.

The MWPSB might have given my credits, they might have tried to rile me up but in the end I won. Nobuchika will never let me go, he will never leave me. Without me, he will never be able to survive, I have broken him and what I’ve done can never be undone.


	15. Chapter 15

** \- Chapter 15 - **

**Ginoza**

My head hurts…

My body hurts…

Everything hurts…

I’m not sure if I lost consciousness due to the pain that has been consuming my body or that I feel asleep due to exhaustion… Maybe both…

I don’t know how many times he came, I lost count and frankly I don’t care. It doesn’t matter how many times that he did, once was enough to make me feel like total trash… I feel dirty, filthy.

His heavy arm on my back almost wants to make my skin crawl and only helps to remind me that he’s still there right next to me. His body touching mine makes me want to vomit. I hate him, he disgusts me and everything I did only further fuels my nausea but I have to move, and I have to get away. If I don’t I might never get another chance.

I carefully lift his arm that’s now around my waist as I carefully crawled off the bed, trying my best not to disturb him and much to my joy he didn’t bother to cuff my ankle again before he fell asleep.

I don’t know if he simply forgot or if in his mind he believed that I wouldn’t try to run away, that I wouldn’t leave him. Hell I would stay with him; I’d rather jump off a bridge and die from the impact than to stay with him.

I quietly look around for where he threw the patient’s robe on the floor, putting it on as quickly as I can without making any sound. Buttoning up the robe proved to be a bit harder to do with my hands shaking from fear or exhaustion. I don’t know what it is for sure and I don’t really have the time to stop and think about it only that I’m shaking like a leaf.

Once I finished buttoning myself up, I tip toe towards the cell door when the sight of the chain that had once held my ankle previously.

I know I should just get away as soon as I can, I shouldn’t be walking back towards him but I still do, praying that I don’t live to regret my decision as I cautiously reach out for the chain, carefully putting it around his wrist. I lock the cuff as quietly as I can and then I back away, never removing my eyes off of him as if at any moment he would wake and everything would be over for me.

He doesn’t stir, always sleeping without a care in the world and after a few minutes of watching him I turn my attention to looking around the darken room but that proved to be rather a challenge. I can’t see much and what I do manage to see isn’t much use for me.

My feet are cold and I hope that I could find something that I could wear but I can’t find anything and whatever I did manage to find could never possibly fit me at all and if I were to wear the oversized clothing it would just be a nuisance to my movements.

I step out of the cell and quietly close the barred door, making sure to lock it securely before turning away not wanting to see that mad man ever again…

If Kou would have been in my position, he wouldn’t have cuffed that man’s wrist; he wouldn’t have locked the cell door. As much as I hate to admit it, Kou would have killed him right then without as much of a care in the world but I can’t do it. I had so many chances to do it, to kill him but I couldn’t…

I take the sheet off the bed, wrapping it around me before carefully opening the bedroom door and stepping out and quietly closing it behind me.

I’m greeted by the same room that I had been held in when I was first taken here, when that freak had been extracting my blood from my body.  I wished that I never had to see this room again, just seeing it brings back memories that I’d like to forget. The lack of lighting doesn’t help to make it less creepy but at this moment as I tip toe across the room, I don’t see anyone nor do I hear anything that could hint that my new found freedom could suddenly end at any minute.

I know that there is someone else here but I’ve barely been able to see the other man but he seems to be rather passive and somehow fearful of the other. I feel sorry for him but I can’t allow myself to become soft, I have to be selfish and think about myself or I might never be able to escape with my life.

Always holding the sheet around me tightly as if it’s somehow a shield, I cautiously walk to the door. Carefully unlocking it without making too much sound, open it and quickly step out as I close the door behind me. What I got greeted with was not exactly what I was expecting. I had thought that I was in a complex, somewhere in the city but it turns out that this place is in the middle of nowhere.

I’m surrounded by trees and the ground is cold on my bare feet but even though the cold is stinging my skin, it still doesn’t feel worse than being forced upon over and over again. I’d rather freeze to death than to have that man touch me again.

 

I start running the fastest that I could but being bare foot only makes it rather difficult to do and I don’t even know where I’m going but that doesn’t seem important at the moment. The only thing that I care about is getting as far away from this place as possible. The larger the distance I can put between myself and that house before he wakes up the better it will be. If he gets his hands on me again, he’ll kill me for sure and I can only imagine in how much of a rage he’ll be once he wakes up and sees that I’m no longer there.

It doesn’t take too long for my feet to start aching as I enter the forest. The branches and the pine needles are stinging my feet and; the cold ground isn’t helping and the night air isn’t warm either. If the sun can only rise it will warm up the air a bit but considering that it’s the middle of October, I rather doubt it will make much of a difference. If only I could find another home or something so I can contact the bureau and have the team come down but so far all I see are endless trees. 

I pull the cotton sheet over my shoulders but I don’t feel much warmth as the cold air seems to pierce me through. The night sky is without a single star and the moon is hiding being the large and thick clouds that are covering the sky making everything seem darker in the night.

I wish the moon had been out tonight. I could have used the natural light to help me see where I’m going if only a little.

A few times since I entered the forest I’ve been getting smacked across the face by branches here and there and the colder I get it feels like the branches that succeed into smacking my face seems to be hitting much harder but I know that it’s not the case. It’s me. My body is dropping, my endurance is diminishing and I know if I don’t get out of here soon I’ll be in big trouble.

I’m not sure how long I’ve been walking in the forest, I feel disoriented and losing track of time. I’m freezing; I can barely feel my toes and my fingers anymore. A few times I’ve stopped to try and heat them up but it didn’t last long and my efforts just didn’t pay off and I decided to just keep going.

I quicken my pace the best that I could but I soon gave up on trying to run after tripping face first on the ground a few too many times. The falls caused scraps to my hands and knees which I didn’t need right now, I didn’t need the added pain to the list of the other parts that were already hurting me.  

Hours… It feels like hours have passed since I’ve started to wander around in the forest. Maybe it had been hours since I escaped my prison. I can’t tell for sure but with each passing second, the crippling anxiety only keeps on growing as each sound that I hear makes me jump and what is worse is that I don’t see anything which doesn’t help to relieve me for my fear that’s twisting at my gut. Fear that all of a sudden he’ll pop out from behind me or I’ll walk right into him and I won’t be able to get away and he’ll take me back to that torture house and I’ll never see the light of day ever again.

A drop of water hits my cheeks as I look up to get a few more hit my face until it just starts down pouring hard and I pull the sheet over my head but it doesn’t take long for the fabric to become completely soaked.

The rain is freezing and I’m surprised that it isn’t snowing instead and before long even the patient’s robe is soaking wet but I keep on walking. Walking is all I can do, I can’t afford to give up now when I’m free. For what it’s worth and what I’ve had to endure in those few days, I’m finally free.

I keep trying to go in a straight pattern, not attempting to go right or left unless I necessarily have to just in case I lose my way and I end up going in circles and go back there by mistake. That’s my biggest fear that I’ll return to that god forsaken place.

As I keep going the forest starts to get thinner with more shrubs than actually trees and then I feel a sudden rush of relief when I catch the glimpse of a house in the distance. There aren’t any lights on, the people occupying it must be all sleep at this early morning hours.

I start running again, trying to ignore the rush of pain with each steps that I make and I fall face first again forcing me to abandon the sheet as I get up but only to stop again when I come upon a stream. I can only imagine how cold it must be isn’t too encouraging to enter but I’m so cold and I don’t even know if I’ll be able to find another house for miles.

I take a deep breath and step into the freezing water causing me to gasp. I knew it was going to be cold and yet I somehow didn’t think it would be this bad. I carefully walk through the water, my feet getting stung by the sharp rocks at the bottom and I can only imagine how badly cut and scrapped they must be at this point.

After a few difficult steps I finally manage to cross the stream without falling down and then I gather the remaining of my energy to bolt straight to the house. The concrete steps are so cold to my feet and although they are smooth they hurt my feet so much.

I start banging on the door like I’m a lunatic. With each bang I would do, I looked around just in case that he’s there. I feel like I’ve become a paranoid wreck, maybe it’s the cold that is starting to mess with my mind or that I’m just scarred of losing my sudden freedom that I never thought I’d have again but I don’t want to go back. I’d rather die instead.

I keep banging on the door until I hear the door knob turn and the door opens.

It’s over…


End file.
